


Path Unwinding

by bluesamutra



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Movie: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:41:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 43,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesamutra/pseuds/bluesamutra
Summary: If the bee hadn't stung Scully
Relationships: Dana Scully/Other(s), Diana Fowley/Fox Mulder, Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

Dana Scully sucked down a long drag from the Marlboro Light and exhaled slowly as her lungs burned. The late September sun had already dipped behind the building next door, casting heavy shadows across the roof of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Scully leaned heavily against the red-brick wall by the access door, left arm looped protectively over her stomach, hand cupping her right elbow as she raised the cigarette to her mouth again.

Until a few months ago, she hadn't smoked since med school, when exhaustion and stress had driven a significant proportion of the Residents, who should've known better, to light up. In the days before the Institute of Medicine cracked down on working hours, a five-minute cigarette break was a welcome respite in a blur of 36- hour shifts. She had no such excuse now; her working hours were more regular than they'd ever been and really, the pressures of her current job seemed trivial in comparison to the last five years. Still, every few weeks she found herself abandoning her office, or the latest corpse, for a few moments solitude on the roof.

It had been an unusually hot summer and even as the sun began to set, the mercury lingered in the eighties and she began to regret the button- down cardigan and cami she'd worn today. Under her starched lab-coat, the layers left her sweating and she could feel a sheen of perspiration coat the nape of her neck and the back of her knees, where her nylons clung uncomfortably.

"Dr. Scully?"

She started and almost dropped the cigarette as Carrie, one of the Deputy Medical Examiners poked her spikey brown bob around the access door. Despite her thirty-four years and position of authority, she felt her cheeks flush at having been caught in the act, like a teenager sneaking sly tokes of a pilfered smoke behind the bleachers.

Carrie, who liked to spend her spare time at raves, looked unperturbed. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. There's a bit of commotion downstairs; I think you should take a look."

Solitude interrupted, Scully sighed and took one last drag on the cigarette before grinding it out under the toe of her calf-leather Tod and following Carrie into the stairwell.

***

"Sir, if you'll just take a seat -"

"I'll take a seat when you get someone down here who knows what the hell is going on!" Mulder's unmistakable voice, droning even when irate, boomed around the sterile reception area, and Scully tossed another three Smints into her mouth before walking through the door.

The bustle quieted as she entered the room and Carrie, the receptionist Fay, and several suited men looked on as Mulder wheeled around to face her, eyes drinking her in for several seconds with an unreadable expression.

"Finally," he said, pressing a blood-soaked handkerchief against a wound on head, "Seems like you need to get your house in order, Scully." His caustic intonation of her name set her hackles up but she swallowed her ire and flicked her gaze around the crowded room before replying in a voice that was calmer than she felt. "What's going on here, Mulder?"

"I've got a serial killer on the loose and a missing corpse that isn't getting any fresher - and no one here seems to give a damn!"

Scully flashed a questioning look to Fay who shook her head, "We haven't had a body delivered." She shot a peeved look in Mulder's direction, "I've already told him that."

"Well there's obviously some confusion then, Mulder. We're not in the habit of hiding -" Scully's retort was cut-off by the electronic buzz from the morgue's back door.

"Yes?" Fay held the receiver to her ear, scarcely containing a smug look as she pressed the gate- release button to let the private ambulance into the loading bay. "Your corpse is here, Agent Mulder," she said tartly, replacing the receiver.

But Mulder, shameless in the aftermath of his unwarranted outburst, only had eyes for Scully. He stepped up close to her until she could smell the familiar scent of his aftershave and she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, "You might as well have a look at my head then, since I'm here."

***

Mulder sat on the edge of a polished gurney, hands folded placidly in his lap while Scully angled the hanging lamp so she could see the rough edges of torn skin on Mulder's hairline flex as she palpated the wound.

The wound was small, but deep, and she tried not to enjoy the silky feel of his hair as she ran her hands over his scalp to check for trauma, or the warmth of his thigh on her hip every time he bumped against her as she stood between his open legs.

Smoothing her hand across his hair in one last check, she dropped her gaze to his face and found him watching her intently.

"This needs stitches," she said in a voice that seemed husky to her ears.

"Can't you just kiss it better?"

She stepped out of the vee of his legs and his hound dog eyes followed her around the room as she searched through drawers for the necessary equipment. She carried out a full schedule of autopsies these days, but unlike the Podunk backwaters she used to find herself working in, now she was used to having a Diener set up the room for her, and it showed in the time it took her to assemble her tools.

Bringing a tray of equipment over to the gurney she ripped the top off a fresh spool of thread and expertly threaded a needle.

"Don't you have any anaesthetic?"

"This is a morgue Mulder, not an ER. And it's only three stitches." She raised her hands to his head and with the needle, pierced the tender skin at the edge of the cut. Mulder flinched at first bite of steel but remained perfectly still while she closed the wound with three neat locked sutures.

"So what happened to your head?" She asked, pressing adhesive gauze over the injury.

"I tripped over a branch at the murder scene."

Mulder's breath, coffee scented and so familiar, stirred her hair and she searched his eyes. Had it really been so long? Ten months since the last time she saw him, an acrimonious farewell at a Starbucks a block over from the Hoover Building, and yet standing here before him now, she could almost imagine no time had passed at all.

"You said a serial killer? In DC?" Surely she would've been aware of that.

"Six victims but this is the first in DC," he studied her face like he was taking mental pictures. "You look good, Scully."

She blinked away the compliment and did not return it. He looked tired and beleaguered, the bluster that had propelled him in the reception room earlier seemed drained from him. She desperately wanted to reach out and touch him but so much had passed between them she was afraid to.

"Are you back with Violent Crimes?" She asked instead and he suddenly looked even more tired.

"For about eight months. I'm back under Skinner."

"He must be thrilled," she teased awkwardly and in the pregnant pause that followed, he smiled so stiffly she thought his face might crack.

"Scully... this one's important. I've been working on this case for a long time."

She nodded softly, "I'll do the autopsy myself."

She turned to collect the tray from the gurney but he caught her hand, his flesh hot and dry, and she looked up into his unreadable brown eyes, "Thank you, Scully."


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey Dr. Scully," Vinny, the senior diener, acknowledged Scully as she entered the morgue and draped her lab coat over the back of a swivel chair by the computer.

"Hi Vinny," she said prodding at the air conditioning control panel and dropping the temperature another couple of degrees. "Thanks for setting up for me so late. I wanted to get this one done tonight."

Vinny nodded, "The x-rays are done already but I haven't unzipped the bag..."

Thanks, I'll do it myself," Scully snapped on a second pair of gloves, adjusting the latex for a comfortable fit. "You should get home; how're Laura and the baby?"

"Great thanks, Ellie's sure keeping us on our toes. She's a real livewire," he smiled, his warm eyes crinkling as he stripped off his own gloves and overhanded them into the trash. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, bye," Scully said, turning her attention to the black body bag on the table before her. She felt oddly keyed-up, at once anxious and excited to be working with Mulder again, however obliquely. These past months had been busy as she settled into her new role as the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner and got used to balancing her responsibilities as a doctor, an administrator and a manager to the team of pathologists and support staff who worked under her. It was light years away from the seven she'd spent at the FBI, and the challenges of her new job had been enough to keep her from thinking too closely about what she'd left behind. And who.

The zipper sounded loudly in the quiet room as Scully unfastened the bag and she blinked in surprise as the body was revealed to her. There must have been some mistake; this body had already been autopsied.

Reaching for the manila crime scene folder, she flipped past the first few textual pages to the photographs at the back. Starkly colored 8 by 10s showed that this was exactly how the body had been found at the scene. 

Still holding the file, Scully leaned closer to the body to inspect the Y-incision and the line of sutures that ran behind the ears and over the back of the skull; both had been closed up with the typical thick twine stitches like those found on a baseball. 

"Dana, I'm heading out now."

Scully looked up to see her boss, the Chief Medical Examiner, Tom Dreighton, shrugging into a linen blazer in the doorway to the morgue. At 43, Tom was six feet of lithe, perfectly honed muscle and good bone-structure. His pale blue shirt pulled taught over the muscles in his chest when he flexed, and he smiled good naturedly as he adjusted his shirt collar under the blazer.

"That was quick, I thought you only just started?" he said, running a hand though his sandy hair, trying in vain to bring some order to his unruly hair.

"I have. This is how the body was found."

Tom frowned and stepped up to inspect the corpse, his arm brushing against her as he reached for the folder in her hand. "God, just when you think you've seen in all..." he mused, flipping through the crime scene photos.

Scully raised an eyebrow as she perused the body, and nodded.

"You want a hand with this?" He looked at her over the file, curiosity sparking in his kind eyes.

"No, it's okay, I've got it," 

"You sure? The only thing I've got waiting for me at home is a beer and ESPN.." His self-deprecation was tempered by a smile but she could see his eagerness to forestall a return to an empty apartment. Tom had just concluded a messy divorce when he hired her, and even nine months on his hurt was still palpable. Scully, feeling somewhat like she was getting over a divorce herself, could sympathize. And another pair of hands would make it more likely she'd get out of the morgue before midnight.

"Glove up then, Tom," she said, taking the file off him and clicking on the Dictaphone as he shucked his blazer. 

"September 23rd, 1999. Time is... 8.05pm. Physicians in attendance Dr. Tom Dreighton, Chief Medical Examiner and Dr. Dana Scully, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner -"

In the corner of the room Tom turned his back to her and pulled his shirt over his head, the muscles of his back rippling under tanned skin as he tugged on a scrub top. He really did have an amazing body, she thought, and he seemed utterly unaware of the effect he had on women. Scully cleared her throat and finished her introductory monologue as he gloved up and joined her by the table.

"Let's collect trace and then get her out of the bag," she said, passing him a handful of evidence bags.

**

"I can't wait to get in her and have a look around," Tom admitted after they had vacuumed, tweezed and cellotaped all the trace evidence from the body and completed the external exam. It sounded kind of weird when he said it out loud, but Scully nodded in agreement. This was very different from the typical cases that came through the office, and even in her years at the Bureau, she'd never seen anything like this.

Reopening the original Y-incision, Scully peeled back the skin and muscle to reveal the rib-cage. "My God," she breathed, her eyes flicking to Tom's face as he peered into the chest cavity at the plastic bag of organs deposited within and the long ties of blue string attached to the carotid and subclavian arteries. "He's even used the Rokitansky method."

Tom gingerly pulled the bag from the chest, holding it between thumb and forefinger to minimize the risk to any fingerprints, and emptied the contents onto the dissecting table. Even from three feet away, Scully could see the organs had already been neatly and smoothly dissected by a bread knife. Their murderer was skilled; she had pathologists working under her now who couldn't dissect with this degree of finesse.

**

It took them several hours to painstakingly piece the body back together, whilst completing their own post- mortem. By the time they finally made their way to their cars it was almost midnight, Scully's neck was in cramp and she'd been on her feet for almost eighteen hours.

She raised a hand in a wave as Tom exited the car park in his Cherokee, and dumped her briefcase on the backseat of her own car. She had to call Mulder and update him on her findings, though she still couldn't get her head around what they actually were. Digging into her briefcase she pulled out the pack of Marlboro Lights and lit one before slamming the car door closed and leaning heavily against it. Today was definitely a two-cigarette day. 

Mulder's phone rang twice before it connected, a shuffling noise filtering down the line before a female voice answered, "Hello?"

Surprise, and something else, plucked at Scully's heart, and a few seconds passed before she spoke, "Is Mulder there?"

"He's asleep, who's calling please?" Scully recognized the smug intonation of Diana Fowley and her chest suddenly ached along with her neck. 

"It's Dana Scully."

"Oh. Let me get him for you."

Scully cracked her neck and held the phone away from her ear to minimize the mumble of Diana's voice in the background.

The kerfuffle of a phone being handed over was broken by Mulder's sleep-drunken voice, "Hello?"

"Mulder, it's me," Scully exhaled a cloud of smoke and flicked the Marlboro's filter with her thumbnail, amending, "It's Scully."

"What time is it?" She could hear the soft rustle of fabric as he shifted and it reminded her of a hundred middle-of-the-night phone calls. Ones that had not involved her finding another woman in his bed. 

"It's almost midnight. I'm sorry I woke you." She tried not to picture him sitting up in bed with Diana by his side.

"I ah, I must've dozed off. Did you do the autopsy?" Of course she did; even ten months after she left the Bureau she was still jumping when he called.

She swallowed against a tightness in her throat, "Yes. Mulder..." Suddenly she didn't want to talk about this on the phone anymore; she just wanted to be home in bed with the duvet pulled over her head. "Can you come here tomorrow morning?" 

Silence on the line seemed to stretch out for minutes before he answered, and the repetitive hum of traffic from Massachusetts Avenue filled her ears.

"Ok. I'll be there."

"Thanks," she said, her voice sounding calmer than she felt inside, and she thumbed the end button. 

Tossing the cigarette she slid into the car and rubbed her hands over her face. What does it matter, she asked herself, she had no hold over Mulder now, maybe she never had. They had only been partners, colleagues, and they weren't even that any more. If he wanted to have a relationship with Diana Fowley, he had every right to.

So why did it hurt so damn much?


	3. Chapter 3

"You've kept me honest ... you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything ... Scully, and you owe me nothing."

Standing down the hall from Mulder's apartment, damp, organic wafts of air from his fish tank mingled with the musty, overused air in the hallway to create an oppressive fug that gripped her chest like a tightening belt. She felt bone-weary and dirty, her fingertips grating stickily against her thumbs as she fidgeted in the doorway, and even as her eyes filled with tears in the face of his admission, she regretted coming.

Because I knew you'd try and talk me out of it, she thought silently as the belt tightened around her chest.

"I don't know if I wanna do this alone... I don't even know if I can ... and if I quit now, they win."

A few tears tracked unbidden down her cheek and she fell against him. Rubbing her nose in his shoulder and breathing him in while his arms wound around her tightly and her resolve wavered. God damn him for making this so hard, she thought, even as he pulled back to look at her, his thumbs rubbing back and forth over the soft skin of her jaw. God damn him to Hell for making her love him so much.

She could see the maelstrom of emotion in his eyes as he edged forward, gaze darting between her lips and her eyes. Fear, desperation, sadness, and burning through it all, desire.

So this is it, she thought. When everything else is in ruins, this is what they were left with. She almost smiled at the thought and then his lips were brushing against hers, his shallow breath falling in puffs against her cheek. 

A hundred times she'd imagined kissing Mulder, had lain awake in some crappy motel room in the middle of nowhere, listening to the muffled sounds of his television set through the cardboard wall; wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed with him and forget everything that was wrong with their lives. But she never did, and he never did, and they never acknowledged this thing that burned between them, singeing their souls as they skirted around the edge of it like moths on a light bulb.

And now there *was* nothing else. There was no FBI, no X-Files, no reason not to reach out and touch the flame. And he was burning hot against her mouth as he carried her back into his apartment, his hands searing her skin as he pulled her clothes off.

Tearing her mouth away from his, she dragged his t- shirt over his head and ran her hands over his chest. How many times had she admired the smooth muscles of his body flexing under his clothes and now, as she scraped her fingernails through his sparse chest hair, he moaned into her neck and swirled his tongue around the sensitive shell of her ear.

His hair smelled clean next to her nose and she suddenly thought about how long it had been since she'd showered. She was sweaty and grimy, and she realized she could smell the musky scent of her own arousal.

"Mulder - wait, I need to shower."

"What? No. You're fine."

"Mulder, really -"

"Scully, you smell fucking amazing." He licked the length of her clavicle with the flat of his tongue, "You taste fucking amazing."

She didn't really have an answer for that, she just clasped his head with both of her hands and drew his face to hers. Mulder's eyes were pinpricks of lust and his tongue snaked out into the gap between their mouths to trace her lips. She met it with her own, their tongues duelling as he nudged her back onto the bed and then trailed wet, open-mouthed kisses down her body. The whisper of his fingers at her hips as he pulled her trousers and panties off raised goose bumps on her skin and a stab of arousal in her abdomen. 

With numb fingers she worked the button on his jeans while Mulder looked down at her through hooded eyes and traced the puckered flesh of her nipples with his forefinger. This was moving so quickly, but she couldn't seem to slow herself down as she pushed the soft denim off his hips and kicked the unwanted fabric away. And then he was there, hard and heavy between her legs, the coarse hair of his legs tickling the sensitive skin of her thighs. It had been so long since she'd done this, and the sensation of being pushed into the mattress, of being possessed by another, was intoxicating.

His fingers wound into her hair, anchoring her head so he could kiss her thoroughly. His cock slid erratically over her drenched clit and she gasped into his mouth. If he only did that a few more times, it would be enough to push her over the edge, but then he nudged her opening, gentle little thrusts as he eased himself inside, matching the serpentine thrust of his tongue in her mouth.

She tried to think through the fog of lust that clouded her brain, tried to reason whether this was a sensible move when they were both so wrung out, but then Mulder hooked an arm under her left knee, pressing her leg up toward her shoulder and opening her body to his thrusts, and she couldn't think any more.

**

It was dark when she opened her eyes, the only light a sliver of amber seeping around the unclicked door and illuminating the mussed sheets where he had been lying. The sporadic gurgle of the coffee percolator and the hum of the fish tank filtered through from the living room and Scully ran her hands over her face, raking her fingers through her hair. Sleep had left her groggy and disoriented and muscles that she hadn't used in a long time were beginning to ache.

Squinting in the half-light from the hall she searched in vain for her clothes, in the end finding only her panties and a creased blue dress-shirt that she remembered him wearing last week. She pulled it over her head and inhaled the lingering scent of his soap. 

In the living room, Mulder was sitting shirtless at his desk, poring over a photo album with his glasses on. He looked up as she entered, eyes casting over her outfit, and he smiled shyly, "Hi."

"Hi." 

"There's coffee in the pot if you want."

Fixing a cup, Scully came to stand by him at the desk. She held the chipped green mug in both hands as she blew over the top of the steaming coffee, "What are you doing?"

Mulder leaned back in his chair and tossed his glasses onto the open photo album, "I don't know. Looking for answers, I guess." His left hand slipped under the hem of his dress shirt and trailed up the back of her thigh.

She blushed when his fingers brushed the crease of her ass and took a sip of scalding coffee to hide it. Mulder regarded her with hooded eyes and she felt her pulse jump.

"So when are you going to talk to Skinner?" He asked in that lazy mumble of his, and it took her a minute to process his words.

"What?"

"When are you going to tell Skinner you're retracting your resignation?" He was fairly kneading her ass with his hand now, and she could see the stir of an erection swelling in his jeans.

"I'm... not?" she said it like a question, but her mind was already filled with the sound of alarm bells. He snatched his hand from under the shirt and she stumbled back as though he had been holding her up. 

"But I thought -" he faltered and her stomach rolled. Oh God.

"You thought what?" she ground out, feeling her cheeks flush not with arousal but humiliation and anger. This was not happening. He had *not* just fucked her to get her to stay.

"I..." 

"You thought that taking me to bed would be the panacea?"

"No, Scully, it's not like that. I-"

It was true what they said about anger making you see red, she thought, as she shook her head against his platitudes, her pulse thrumming loudly in her ears. Or perhaps it was just exhausted, emotional giddiness that made her knees feel weak as she staggered back to the bedroom and pulled her trousers on with unfeeling fingers.

Mulder stumbled behind her, filling the doorframe and blotting out light from the dingy hallway. 

She couldn't see her blouse or bra through the haze of her humiliated anger and she certainly wasn't taking this damn shirt off in front of him. She grabbed her blazer from the floor and pushed past him.

"Scully, please!" Mulder seized her arm desperately, eyes wide with fear.

"Let me go," she said urgently, but he clung on, fingers biting into her bicep through the cool cotton shirt. "God dammit Mulder, let me go!" she cried, wrenching her arm free with enough force that he jerked backward in recoil.

"Scully," he whispered, dropping back against the scuffed ochre wall as though his legs could no longer support his weight.

She hesitated as he sagged in defeat, but she shook the uncertainty from her head. She had given him everything. Her friendship, her career, her loyalty. She had even placed her reputation in his hands when she thought doing so would be enough to save him. And now, when she'd said enough was enough, and the last thing she had left to give him was her body, her love, he had taken it. Not because he returned the sentiment but because he couldn't bear to let her leave.

He met her gaze with fear blackened eyes, and she had to turn away from him before he could see the tears pool in her own eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Scully stirred a spoon absent-mindedly around her cooling cup of coffee as she pored over a stack of reports that required her signature. It reminded her of grading papers at Quantico, though thankfully the assistant MEs tended to get the science right, unlike her students at Quantico.

Her eyes felt scratchy from lack of sleep, and it had taken a heavy hand with the concealer this morning to obliterate the rings under her eyes. After she'd gotten home last night she'd been keyed up about her autopsy findings and on edge after her phone call with Mulder. Unable to sleep, she'd taken her laptop and a large glass of Remy Martin to bed and worked on her autopsy report. She'd woken a couple of hours ago with her face pressed into an 8 by 10 of the crime scene and a head fuzzy from fatigue and alcohol.

"Knock, knock," Mulder peered around the edge of her office door and stepped into the room, his own face lined with exhaustion, "Your secretary wasn't at her desk." He didn't look like he'd slept much last night either, but Scully didn't want to think about the possible reasons why. 

"She doesn't get in until 8am."

Mulder pushed a Starbucks cup across the desk towards her and sat down in one of the black Bauhaus chairs in front of her desk. "Thought you might need this. After last night."

She quirked her lips in a gesture approximating a thank you and popped the lid to inspect the contents. Venti soymilk latte, no foam. And an extra shot, she could smell it. It was a bittersweet realization that Mulder still remembered her coffee order.

Mulder cast his gaze around her office, cataloguing this room he'd never been in before, and she found herself looking round too, seeing it through his eyes.

It was a medium sized room with taupe walls and unusually for a Government office, brightly lit by a large window overlooking the freeway and the north end of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail beyond. One wall was taken up by her medical texts and ten years’ worth of JAMAs and on the other side of the room sat a small conference table. Her desk, an oak behemoth that dominated the room, sat in front of the window and groaned under the weight of her Olympus microscope and the stack of reports she was working on.

From eight until late her secretary Kitty sat outside and kept her on the straight and narrow. It was the office she should have always had, the life she should have been leading for years. The life that her family had always expected of her. She just wished she could shake the empty feeling inside of her, the one that had her sneaking cigarettes just so she could escape for five minutes.

Mulder set his cup on the desk and poked at the bent corner of a folder in her stack. "Scully, about last night."

"It doesn't matter," she forced lightness into her tone and took a sip of her latte.

"It does. I want to explain."

"It's none of my business."

Mulder stared at her and she couldn't bring herself to look away. "But it is, Scully."

"No, Mulder. It really isn't."

He opened his mouth as if to respond and she raised her eyebrows, effectively silencing him. "Tell me about the autopsy," he settled on after an awkward beat.

This part she could do, she thought as she dumped the paperwork she'd been looking over on the floor and spread open her autopsy report from the night before.

"Unknown female subject, aged between twenty- five and thirty. I've already forwarded fingerprints and dental x-rays to the Bureau for identification. She had an old break in her left scaphoid and a birthmark on her back that might help you." She laid the photographs she and Tom had taken on the polished surface of the desk. 

"Jane Doe died within the last thirty-six hours. Contusions and abrasions on her neck and a fracture to the hyoid bone suggest manual strangulation, which most likely rendered her unconscious. A y-incision was made in her trunk and the skin, muscle and soft tissue were peeled away from the chest wall, causing her to bleed profusely. A Stryker saw was used to open the rib cage and the chest plate was removed. The pericardial sac was breached, exposing the pulmonary artery, which was cut, leading to massive bloodless and death within minutes. The killer proceeded to carry out a standard autopsy, removing and dissecting the major organs with a bread knife. We found them in the abdomen, in a plastic bag with no fingerprints on it. In fact, there were no fingerprints anywhere on the body. A small section of the heart was missing."

Mulder picked up a photograph of Jane Doe's heart on the dissecting tray next to a ruler and rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his other hand.

"The rape kits were negative but she tested positive for semen in the abdominal cavity. We're running DNA testing now. I don't expect you'll turn up a match when we have it though." Scully took a sip of her cooling coffee as Mulder put the photograph down and looked at her impassively. "But none of this is news to you," she surmised, from Mulder's lack of reaction. "You said there were five other victims?"

"Three in Maryland, two in Virginia. Exactly the same MO," Mulder ran a tired hand over his face, "Anything strike you as unusual?" At her raised eyebrow he amended, "Other than the obvious."

Last night's autopsy reminded her of the few occasions when she had re-autopsied a body at the request of a family and she'd had to comb through another doctor's handiwork with a fine tooth comb. "The killer is highly skilled. This isn't just the sixth time he's performed an autopsy. There were no hesitation cuts, no mistakes - he knew exactly what he was doing, right down to tying off the carotid and subclavian arteries so a mortician could find them. I don't know what to make of that."

"What's the significance of the bread knife?"

Scully considered. "Not everyone uses one. They're faster and they give a better finish than scissors or the scalpel but it takes care and skill to master. We have six MEs here and only two of us do most of the soft tissue dissection using a bread knife."

Mulder drummed his fingers on the desk. "I could really use your help on this Scully." She shrugged slightly as if to say, 'what can I do?' and he tilted his head, regarding her for a moment before he pushed back out of the uncomfortable chair and paced her office, hands on his hips. "I'm whistling in the wind here. It's been four months and we're no closer to catching this guy than the day we started. He's been a pro since the beginning; exactly the same MO, nothing changes, he's still a sadistic motherfucker and I'm..." he sighed in frustration, "I don't even know where to start to get a handle on him."

"Mulder," she started softly, "I don't know how I can help you. I'm not an Agent anymore." 

"You consult all the time, Scully. Maryland, New York, last month you even went to Seattle." He bit his lip too late, and Scully blinked in surprise at the tacit admission. She opened her mouth to ask him why he was keeping tabs on her only to be interrupted by a knock on the door as Tom poked his head into the office.

"Morning Dana - oh sorry, I didn't realize you were in a meeting," he hovered in the doorway with a half-eaten Danish in one hand and a mug in the other, a manila folder tucked under his arm.

Scully forced a smile, and replied "It's fine Tom, come in. This is Special Agent Mulder with the FBI. He's investigating Jane Doe," she glanced at Mulder, "Tom Dreighton, the Chief Medical Examiner," she said by way of introduction.

Tom stuffed the Danish in his mouth to free a hand, dusting it off on his pants before he proffered it to Mulder. 

"Nice to meet you," Mulder said amiably but Scully could see his eyes narrow slightly as he sized up Tom.

"Dana, I just got the slides back from the lab for Jane. Nothing of consequence in them," he held the folder out for her inspection.

"Dammit," she cursed, as the folder slipped from her grasp and dropped onto the floor, contents spilling under the desk. She leaned down to collect the slides and frowned as she saw the scattered rectangles fluorescing in the shadowy foot well. "What the hell..?"

"What is it?" Mulder asked stepping closer to the desk.

Scully picked a slide off the floor and held it up. In the golden glow of the morning sun, it looked completely normal. "The slides glow in the dark."

"What?!" Tom exclaimed, moving round to peer under the desk. "Jesus - what the hell is that?"

Mulder joined them, crouching down to get a closer look. His shoulder brushed Scully's knee, the wool of his suit rasping against her stocking as he collected the slides. Even as her mind ran through possible explanations for this perplexing discovery, her skin tingled at the contact.

"Contamination in the lab?" he suggested, handing the innocuous looking glass plates to Scully.

"I don't see how." She loaded a slide of kidney onto the microscope and squinted into the eyepieces, "If it were contamination I'd expect to see traces of the contaminant all over the slides - but it's just the organ sections themselves that are fluorescing."

She felt a hand touch her shoulder and drop casually down her back as Tom nudged her aside so he could peer into the microscope himself.

"Do you know if the slides in the other murders exhibited similar characteristics?" She looked to Mulder for an answer and found him staring at her back as though Tom had left a handprint there. 

He dragged his gaze to meet hers and his expression was unreadable, "No, but it shouldn't be too hard to find out."

"I'll get these up to the lab for chromatography testing," Tom said, collecting the folder of slides and heading to the door, "It was good to meet you Agent Mulder."

Mulder dipped his head in an unenthusiastic acknowledgement and poked at the autopsy photographs still spread across Scully's desk. He still stood only a few inches away and when he turned to look at her, she had to crane her neck to see his face.

"I really could use your help, Scully," he admitted quietly, and something in his tone tweaked at her conscience. She had never been very good at denying him; it was why it had taken her five years to walk away, and she found herself nodding before she could really stop herself.

He studied her face for a moment, the barest hint of melancholy passing over his expressionless face, before he blinked it away and she wondered if she had really seen it. Mulder moved towards the door, looking back as he held onto the doorjamb, "Thank you." 

The door clicked closed behind him and Scully leaned forward over her desk, bracing her hands on the smooth oak and bowing her head in fatigue. There had been a time when she drew strength and energy from her partnership with Mulder. Her cancer had made her realize how much she had come to rely on him, and there had been days, weeks even, where the only thing that had gotten her out of bed in the morning was the thrill of working with Mulder. And that's what it had been: exhilarating, exciting, stimulating. The most innocuous conversations shared on stakeouts, in the departure lounge, standing in line in the cafeteria, had enlivened even as her life had ebbed away.

And yet now, the keen sense of grief she felt over their lost friendship meant just thirty minutes in his company exhausted her beyond belief.


	5. Chapter 5

The electric hum of crickets reverberated through the frayed lounger and stirred the little hairs on the back of her neck. Scully closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the gnawing pain that gripped her forehead. The air smelled of kelp, tangy and thick, and the humidity pressed on her chest and made the blunt ends of her hair curl.

The three Vicodin she dry-swallowed earlier had barely dented the headache and she thought of the bottle of OxyContin lying unopened at the back of her bathroom cabinet, and wished she were home instead of investigating a stigmatic statue of St. Francis in Key West. 

"Hey."

She cracked open her eyes and squinted up at Mulder as he towered over her prostrate form in his cut off Yankees t-shirt and running shorts. He took a swig from a bottle of Citrus Cooler and wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm.

"I can't believe you're running in this weather," she said, the vibration of her voice jabbing at her headache like a chisel. Even the dim rippling blue of the swimming pool felt like it was searing her retinas and she let her eyes drift shut. 

"What're you doing out here?" The lounger next to her scraped along the ground as Mulder perched on the edge of it.

"Nothing," she said, "Just sitting."

"Does your head hurt?"

She edged open her eyes and looked at him. He had the same careworn eyes he'd had when he'd stood opposite her in the New Horizon Psychiatric Center last week and told her he was afraid of the same thing she was. She didn't say anything, couldn't say anything, and after a moment he set his bottle of Gatorade on the cracked concrete slab by her shoes.

"Scoot over, Scully."

The lounger creaked warningly beneath them as Mulder eased himself onto worn linen that had at one time been green. The soft, worn denim of her jeans whispered against the lounger as he pulled her against him, and she stiffened for a split- second before letting herself relax into his touch. 

"It's a clear night tonight," Mulder murmured as he pressed her head against his chest, long fingers combing her hair and distracting her from the throb in her skull.

"Do you know the story of Castor and Pollux?" As he talked, his lips brushed her forehead soothingly, and his hand smoothed the rumpled cotton of her shirt as he rubbed circles on her back. 

She probably knew it better than he did, but she was quite content to let Mulder tell her the story. She murmured noncommittally, nestling her cheek into the butter-soft fabric of his t-shirt and inhaling his musky scent. 

"Well, a long, long time ago there was a very beautiful goddess called Leda, who was the wife of Tyndareus, the king of Lacedaemon. One night, Leda was made pregnant both by her husband and by Zeus, who, disguised as a swan, seduced her. In time, she gave birth to twins: Pollux and Castor. Now, Pollux, as the son of a god, was immortal and was renowned for his strength, whilst his brother, Castor, a skilled horseman, was mortal."

His dull monotone soothed her tired body, and she felt him shift to look down at her. Scully clenched his t-shirt in her hand and happy that she was still awake, Mulder settled back in the lounger and continued. 

"Over the years the brothers joined Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece and fought in the Trojan War to save their sister Helen. When Castor was killed by Idas, Pollux was overcome by grief. He begged his father that he should be allowed to share his immortality with his brother, and Zeus, moved by the heroism of the brothers, granted Pollux's wish. In honor of their devotion to one another, Zeus placed their image in the sky, and those two stars form Gemini." Mulder paused and pressed a kiss to her forehead, right where the tumor nestled insidiously between her brain and sinus. His arms tightened around her and now that he had stopped talking, she could hear the steady cadence of his heart beating under her ear.

Distantly, over the chirp of crickets and Mulder's rhythmic pulse, a ship's horn sounded throatily, and Scully felt herself drifting between wakefulness and sleep, her mind dreamily picturing herself and Mulder, riding on white horses through the gates of Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece. Long minutes passed before Mulder spoke again.

"I will never leave you, Scully," he whispered into her ear, breath rustling her hair, and she tightened her hold on him as she slipped closer to sleep, safely cocooned in Mulder's arms.


	6. Chapter 6

Scully's heels clicked crisply in the polished hallways of the fourth floor as she followed Agent Maxwell to the command room. It wasn't as though she needed a guide, and Agent Maxwell's vapid chitchat was a one- way stream which she let drift over her as she took in the familiar sights and sounds of the Hoover Building.

"Must be strange being back?" Maxwell said over her shoulder, one hand on the doorknob for the conference room.

Scully forced a smile. In ten months, the Hoover Building appeared not to have changed, and the only difference she felt walking down its familiar corridors now was the absence of a gun on her hip. In fact, getting dressed in the mornings and not clipping on her holster had taken months to get used to. 

Agent Maxwell pushed open the heavy beech door and they stepped into the command room. Almost twenty agents were scattered around the room at workstations, desks and in front of the six whiteboards lined against the far wall. In the back corner, poring over a stack of computer printouts stood Mulder and AD Skinner. Mulder glanced up as she approached, and he looked her over from head to foot in a way that made her want to tug her skirt down below her knees.

As she reached them, Skinner grasped her hand in his enormous mitt and looked down at her, a rare smile softening his tough features, "Scully, it's good to see you."

"You too, Sir," she said reflexively and found she kind of meant it.

"Grim cause for a reunion," Mulder mumbled. He looked creased and downbeat and he slid a sheet of paper towards Scully, "We got an ID on Jane."

Scully scanned the missing person's notice; Jane was otherwise known as Annabel York, a grad student at Georgetown who'd last been seen four days ago. "Any connection to the other five?"

"Not that we can find. It's like he picks them at random."

"A guy who kills with this much precision is not working at random. Something links these women, Mulder, we just have to figure out what it is."

Mulder perked up at her choice of pronoun as he steered her toward the whiteboards. "The first victim was Sadie Morris, a banker at Goldman Sachs. She was found dead in Gaithersburg in April; same MO as what you found with Annabel York. Four weeks later Lynn McCourt turned up in Baltimore but the cases weren't linked until Alice Cohen was murdered in Norfolk, Virginia, and the local PD got a hit through the NCIC. Obviously when he crossed the border, it became a federal case." Mulder pointed out each of the women as they walked slowly along the length of the whiteboards.

"July was a busy month. Sandi Mason and Elizabeth Moore were killed within two days of one another, over the 4th July weekend." They reached the final whiteboard, with a picture of Annabel York smiling and alive at the top. "And that brings us up to Wednesday."

Scully nodded absently as she squinted at the boards. In the facial shot of Sandi Mason taken during the post-mortem, she could just make out a faint scar at the hairline. Poring over the wall, she studied the other autopsy photographs.

"Are you aware if all these women had undergone cosmetic surgery?"

Mulder blinked, his eyes flicking to the photographs on the wall, "What?"

Scully felt a prickle of excitement on the back of her neck as she pointed to the scar on Sandi's forehead, "This looks like evidence of a facelift." She moved along to tap a photograph of Alice Cohen mid-autopsy; red scars, partially obscured by the chest flap, marred the waxy skin of her abdomen, "These are liposuction scars - recent I'd say by the color of them, and I noticed scarring consistent with a panniculectomy on Lynn McCourt. Annabel York had breast implants."

Mulder leaned into the photo of Alice Cohen, squinting as he sucked his lower lip between his teeth.

"I can't see anything on Elizabeth Moore, but I suspect her autopsy report would mention cosmetic surgery of some kind, and if it doesn't her medical records should," Scully hypothesized, her pulse jumping in her veins at the thrill of finding a clue. She'd forgotten what a buzz she used to get from working a case.

Mulder called over to Agent Maxwell, "Dionne - can we get Elizabeth Moore's medical records and autopsy report? I think Dr. Scully's just found something." 

Several of the other Agents looked over in interest, and Skinner's ears pricked up, "What is it?"

"Scully thinks all the women had plastic surgery - this could be the break we've been waiting for," Mulder perched on the edge of a desk and looked across at her, his face brighter than she'd seen it since he first reappeared in her life, and she felt herself flushing under his inspection.

"Good catch, Scully," Skinner said, and it occurred to her that in all the years she'd worked under him, he'd never congratulated her on a job well done. There was a hum of interest in the room as the prospect of a new clue buoyed the Agents. 

"That's not all, Sir," Mulder continued, "Tell him about the slides, Scully," he urged, hands gripping the desk on either side of him. She sighed inwardly, feeling the adrenaline rush subside at the prospect of revealing this 'evidence' when so little was known about it. 

"There are some ... anomalies with the microscopic slides that requires further investigation," she hedged.

"What kind of anomalies?" Skinner queried.

"The samples are exhibiting some luminescence, which has yet to be explained."

The Agents around the table frowned as they processed this. "You're saying the slides glow in the dark?" Scully scanned the room to locate the questioner, and found Agent Fowley staring at her incredulously, a look that seemed scornful to Scully, crossing her face.

Scully licked the corner of her mouth, thinking that this meeting was beginning to feel a lot like the old days - starting out rational and descending into the fantastic in a few short minutes. "They have some fluorescent qualities, yes."

Agent Fowley opened her mouth to press further but someone giving a tuneless rendition of the Twilight Zone theme cut her off. She snapped round to glower at the whistler who merely smirked and held his hands up in surrender.

"Well let's see what your analysis digs up Scully," Skinner interjected, "And in the meantime, let's take a fifteen minute breather before we regroup," he said dismissing the assembled group. 

Agent Fowley threaded her way towards them through the parting crowd. Scully felt her shoulders tense and Mulder darted from his spot on the desk to stand between them like some kind of ringmaster. 

"Dana, you look well. Life outside the FBI obviously agrees with you," Agent Fowley said in a tone that lacked sincerity.

"Diana is running the X-Files now, Scully," Mulder explained and Scully blanched at the acceptance in his tone. "That's why I asked her here today."

"I see," said Scully, though she really didn't. Since when was Mulder happy for someone else to investigate his precious X-Files? Even when she had been his partner, he barely trusted her to investigate a case on her own. "Well I'm not sure how much I can help you Agent Fowley. As I explained, analysis on the slide material is still ongoing."

"Have you considered the possibility that you introduced a contaminant in the lab?"

Because as one of the leading forensic authorities on the Eastern seaboard, she regularly fucked her samples up. She didn't appreciate the implication first from Mulder and now from Agent Fowley, and she eyed Diana coolly, "Contamination is not the issue."

Mulder dug his hands into his pockets and looked uncomfortable. "The slides from the earlier cases show the same characteristic, Diana," he said carefully, and Scully wondered who it was he was trying to appease.

The older woman did not seem particularly perturbed as she watched Scully with the same discomfiting, smug, semi-smile that she always wore. Not for the first time in Diana's company, Scully felt like she'd arrived late to the party. When they'd first met a year ago, there was something about the woman that made Scully question her own role in Mulder's life, and now, when her role had never been more obscured, the self-satisfied cast on Diana's face made her gut clench. 

"I have a meeting I'm late for," Scully said finally, collecting her briefcase from the floor. "Do you have the files ready for me to review?" she asked Mulder.

He nodded and collected a heavy looking archive box from a nearby desk. "I'll walk you out," he offered and for a split second, Diana's face registered surprise. 

**

Still fuming as they reached the underground car park, Scully stabbed her remote like it was Diana Fowley's face and the locks popped open with a whirr. Mulder dumped the archive box in the trunk and then joined her as she opened the driver's door and the smell of new leather wafted out, mingling with the unpleasant smell of hot rubber and warm exhaust fumes.

He ran his hand along the gleaming paintwork of the Audi, the open door separating them. "Nice wheels. I guess life at the OCME has its perks."

"I didn't leave the FBI so I could afford a better car, Mulder," she snapped and then mentally kicked herself for giving him an opening.

"So why did you leave then Scully?"

Sad brown eyes studied her and she couldn't sustain her irritation. Scully sighed, "We went through this ten months ago, Mulder."

Mulder nodded thoughtfully. "I didn't understand then either," he admitted, adding after a beat, "I can't believe what you do now challenges you the same."

"I'm not asking you to believe it Mulder. My life is different now." Empty. Lonely. Unfulfilling. But she also knew the biggest mistake she could make would be thinking her life would've ended up any different if she'd stayed in the Bureau and taken the transfer to Utah.

The door between them was hard against her stomach and Mulders fingers curled over the top of the frame, "I miss you," he whispered, like a guilty admission.

"Mulder," she murmured warningly, wondering if she had it in her to weather another round of his emotional blackmail.

"I hate the way it ended between us."

She couldn't disagree, but having him mention it like this brought a fresh flush of humiliation to her cheeks. She wanted so badly to hate him for what he had done to them, but the fact was she had let him, had dug her fingernails into his back and begged him not to stop. Rather than regretting that he had wanted her friendship but not her love, shouldn't she be flattered by the lengths he had been prepared to go to in order to keep her by his side? 

A few rows over the V8 engine of an Escalade revved to life and they both turned to the source of the noise. The distraction gave her the time she needed to swallow her eddying emotions.

"I gotta go, Mulder," she said, turning back to face him as he held fast to the frame, his hooded eyes giving nothing away. She quirked her eyebrow and he let go slowly, stepping back from the door. Only the advanced German-designed dampers kept the door from slamming as she snapped it shut.


	7. Chapter 7

"Agent Scully, have a seat."

Skinner wheeled his chair backward and rose as Kimberley ushered her into his office and closed the door silently behind her. Agents joked about the rarefied air on the Executive level, but the truth was the air in Skinner's office really did seem different to the fusty atmosphere that had cloaked the basement.

Scully settled in her usual chair in front of his desk. She smoothed her skirt and crossed her legs and tried not to notice the empty chair beside her.

Skinner shuffled some papers on the blotter in front of him and his crisp white shirt whispered as he reached across the desk for a piano black Mont Blanc. He held the pen in both hands, rolling it back and forth as he regarded her silently.

Years ago, his actions would have unnerved Scully, but she had so often been raked over the coals in this office that she had become inured to Skinner's tactics. Whether he was dishing out orders for a new case or reaming her out, Scully had perfected her impassive stance.

"What's this about Scully?"

She kept eye contact and locked her jaw and when it became apparent that she wasn't going to answer he sighed. "Is there some kind of problem with Agent Mulder?"

"No, Sir," not one that she planned to share with Skinner, at any rate. And not one that had any bearing on her resignation from the Bureau; that decision had already been squared away before their relationship imploded.

Skinner squinted at her like the word 'liar' might materialize on her forehead if only he looked hard enough.

"I could arrange a transfer to Quantico -"

"No, Sir," she shook her head, cutting him off firmly. "I appreciate your concern but I've made my decision."

Skinner sighed, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What will you do?" he asked at last.

Scully relaxed slightly in her chair and considered. When she'd handed Skinner her letter of resignation after the OPR review the other day, she'd been awake for thirty-six hours and had just watched the last crumbs of her career get brushed to the floor. Resigning had been a gut reaction; she'd left the review still wearing her suit from the day before, sweaty and exhausted and emotionally drained, and she had known she could not continue in this organization that had no respect for her, no respect for the truth. Not when she herself had sacrificed so much in the truth's pursuit. 

Telling Skinner she was quitting had been a relief, and for a few blessed hours before she went to Mulder's apartment, she'd felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She still did really, she just wished like hell that she could have been approaching the next phase of her life with her relationship with Mulder intact.

"I'm going to get on with my life," she said raising her chin in defiance and Skinner blinked owlishly at her, like he didn't dare suggest that without Mulder and the Bureau, she had no life.


	8. Chapter 8

"... the cause of death was thromboembolism, so a pretty straightforward autopsy all-in-all," Carrie Edwards concluded her round up of another week of post-mortems and leaned back in the conference chair.

"Thanks Carrie, you should think about writing that cardio myxoma case up for the JAMA," Tom suggested from the head of the table, scribbling some notes onto a legal pad.

Scully clenched her jaw against a yawn and glanced surreptitiously at her watch. Friday afternoon debriefings reminded her of the hours she used to spend sitting next to Mulder in Skinner's office being grilled over their latest rule infraction. It didn't help that she'd hardly slept the last two nights, and then after the awkward meeting with Mulder earlier, she'd had to battle through a throng of reporters covering the York case to get back into the OCME. She'd nearly run one of them over when a reporter had shoved a microphone through her open car window trying to get a quote other than 'no comment'.

"Dana, want to update everyone on your week?"

Scully frowned as she refocused on the room and paused for a second as she took mental stock. Well it started out okay, but then my former FBI partner / lover turned up out of the blue with a fluorescent corpse and a case that's beginning to look like an X- File, which I kind of thought I'd gotten away from.

"Uh, sure. I was in court Monday and Tuesday -"

"Oh yeah, how'd that go?"

"Good, Harrison was convicted on the forensic evidence."

Tom graced her with the kind of pleased, appreciative look she'd never had from Skinner, at least until today, "Great job Dana, really good."

Unused to praise from a superior, Scully nodded uncomfortably and continued, "Wednesday I was at the CDC for an meeting of the Interagency Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance." God, even saying the group's name out loud made her want to yawn. "Yesterday and today I've been working on the Jane Doe the FBI brought in."

"What'd she die of?" Carrie asked curiously. "She was strangled and then eviscerated in a manner not dissimilar from a post-mortem examination. Ultimately she bled to death."

Carrie grimaced and ran a hand through her spiky hair, "Grizzly."

"In the extreme," Scully agreed. "Anyway, analysis is still ongoing."

"Didn't you used to investigate weird shit like this at the FBI?" John Carre, a third year resident, piped up affably, and Scully resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 

She opened her mouth to respond but Tom cut her off, "Well it's lucky we have Dana here then, to help us get to the bottom of this." He fixed her with a look, his eyes warm, and shuffled his papers into a pile. "Okay I think that about wraps it up. Thanks everyone."

**

"So Dana, plans for the weekend?" Tom's arm brushed her shoulder as they walked along the hall to their offices.

"Not really. My brother's in town so I have a family dinner tomorrow, and, uh, Agent Mulder asked me to review the other case files so I think my Friday night is pretty well accounted for," she trailed off as they reached the door to her office.

"I could give you a hand if you like? Bring over some food and another pair of eyes?" His tone was casual, and she knew that turning him down would be met with a good-natured shrug and no ill feeling, but there was something in his eyes that she'd seen before; a flicker of hopefulness, as though he wanted to test their boundaries but was afraid to push too hard.

She shrugged out of her lab-coat and hung it on the hat stand as she studied Tom's face. He was certainly easy on the eye, and his obliviousness to it made him all the more attractive. He was smart as a whip, easy- going, sympathetic to the demands of her job, and more than that, she was pretty sure he found her attractive. She'd seen him checking her out when he thought she wasn't looking, his ears turning pink if she happened to catch him. 

She thought back to Mulder, shifting nervously between her and Diana at the Hoover Building that morning. Whatever they'd had was over, and Mulder obviously hadn't wasted any time moving on himself. Was she going to pine over him forever like some kind of jilted teenager? She needed to take a hold of herself and move on with her life.

"Bring a bottle of wine too and you can have first dibs on the toxicology reports," she said at last, alluding to his geeky penchant for recognizing every chemical compound known to man.

He smiled, and it brightened his whole face. "Ah you know me too well. I'll see you about seven?"

Scully nodded and found herself smiling back. Maybe this wasn't so hard after all.


	9. Chapter 9

It was almost seven-thirty when she finally heard a knock at the door. Tossing her pen down on the stack of files on her coffee table, she shoved her glasses to the top of her head and padded over to the door.

Tom stood on the threshold with the promised victuals and an apologetic face. Scully suppressed a smile at the anxious, if attractive, picture he presented. Like her, he'd showered and changed since work and as she took in the sight of his jeans and sweater, she realized she had never seen him in casual clothes before.

"Sorry I'm late - Wisconsin is completely rammed and then I had to park so far away I might as well have walked from Adams."

She ushered him inside and the fragrant smells of grilled chicken and chopped herbs wafted up as she helped him set the bags on the kitchen table. "This smells amazing," Scully observed, her stomach rumbling in anticipation. It seemed like days since she'd last eaten anything other than a hurried yoghurt, standing in front of the refrigerator.

They poured wine and set out the containers of Lebanese food on the coffee table next to the autopsy photos and settled down on the floor to eat.

"I was thinking," said Tom, as he loaded his plate with food, "the corpses themselves don't glow, only the organs that the killer removed for inspection. He must be contaminating them wherever it is he does the dissection."

Scully swallowed a mouthful of falafel. "But that doesn't explain how the organs became saturated the way they were; it's not like it's a superficial contamination. When I took samples, I cut from a completely different area, and the fluorescence was evident evenly though the slice." 

Tom rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the rasp of his fingernails on the light stubble of his chin loud in the quiet room. "Did the tox report come back yet?"

Scully nodded, flipping through a stack of papers beside her knee and handing him the sheet. 

He scanned it as he dipped a football-shaped kibbeh into the hummus and bit it in half, "Tritium. A lot of it."

"It's a controlled substance, that ought to help," Scully mused around a mouthful of falafel.

Leaning back against the sofa with his glass of wine in hand, Tom looked at her ruefully. "You know I've been a doctor for eighteen years, CME for the last five and I've never seen anything like this. Not these glowing slides or this... MO..." He drained his glass, and reached for the bottle of Muga Special Reserve. "But something tells me you've seen things a lot weirder. A lot more terrifying."

Scully held her own glass out for a refill and then fingered the stem as she considered how to respond. "My time at the FBI was certainly elucidating," she said carefully, and Tom huffed a laugh, rubbing a hand over his full stomach. Scully found herself staring at the circular motion of his fingers as they brushed the soft blue cashmere of his sweater.

"What do you make of the MO here then? In your professional opinion?"

"Skilled. Extremely skilled to do what he does as well as he does; he must have medical training." She swirled the blood-red wine around the glass as she contemplated, eyes narrowed in thought. "Though I can hardly begin to imagine what would motivate someone to carry out an autopsy on a living person. Is it about power - he does it because he *can*? Or arrogance, showing off his talents?"

Scully stretched her denim-covered legs out in front of her, knees burning in relief. She wriggled her toes, stiff from being sat on for so long, and when she looked back to Tom, she found that he was staring at her bare feet.

"Maybe he just wants to practice his skills?" he suggested distractedly. "Maybe it's not a doctor, but a PA or a diener who's doing this."

"Why masturbate over the victim then?" she countered and Tom grimaced, pulling his gaze from her toes to his wine. "This is more than just some frustrated diener somewhere who wants a piece of the action. These murders are clearly sexually motivated, at least in part."

"I guess I need to leave the profiling to the experts, but the tritium I can help with. What are you doing Sunday - you up for a little experimentation?" He wagged his eyebrows at her and she looked at him over the rim of her glass.

"What did you have in mind?"

"I've got a friend who's a physics professor at Georgetown who could give us access to their lab. I was thinking maybe we could see if we could make some organs glow..."

"Sounds like a plan," Scully said, feeling the same tingle of excitement she'd had when she'd discovered the plastic surgery link in the morning. It felt good to be challenged, to be working on a puzzle and not knowing where the next piece was coming from. It was the uncertainty from day to day that she was beginning to realize she missed from her time on the X-Files.

Tom set his glass on the table and clasped his hands behind his head as he stretched with a groan. A chink of golden flesh materialized between his jeans and sweater and Scully's eyes were drawn to it. It must be the wine, she thought dumbly, the salty food they'd just eaten which left her mouth suddenly dry. The thing to do was to eat more, distract herself. She scooped a dollop of hummus and brought it to her mouth, sucking the tangy paste off her finger with a swirl of her tongue. Tom's eyes widened and a claxon went off in her head. What am I doing, she thought frantically, dropping her hand to her lap like a brick, and feeling the flush creep up her neck.

Tom's dropped his own hands back to his lap, gaze flicking between her mouth and her eyes. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are," he said softly and at her startled look, he blushed, "I'm sorry, I'm ... I didn't ... that was out of line."

Scully sipped her wine, rolling the rich Rioja around her mouth before swallowing. "It's ok, Tom," she said softly.

He looked at her carefully, trying to read her face. "Is it?"

She nodded and a small smile relaxed his face. 

"I'm out of practice, I guess."

Scully ducked her head, "Me too. Tom, I -" the trill of the phone interrupted her and she cleared her throat to disperse some tension as she dug the handset out from under a container of baba ghanouj and pressed it to her ear. "Hello?"

'Scully, it's me." Of course, who the hell else would it be? 

"Mulder, what is it? What's wrong?" Her eyes flicked to Tom as he feigned interest in one of the case files and tried to look like he wasn't listening.

"I just wanted to let you know... Elizabeth Moore had a rhinoplasty just over a year ago. You were right, Scully."

She wasn't sure she'd ever heard those words in that order come out of Mulder's mouth before, and it phased her for a second. "Uh, okay. Have you -"

"There's a team cross-checking all of the personnel and facilities involved now," he pre-empted her question, his delivery lethargic even as his tone hinted at excitement. She could hear the whine of the television in the background. "But it makes sense. Cutting them open the way he did. It's like he was trying to get beyond the facade, get to their truth. This is the link, I know it." He paused and ice chinking against a glass echoed on the line. "Where are you with the slides?"

"We think it could be something to do with a exposure to tritium."

"'We'?"

"Dr. Dreighton has been reviewing the cases with me." She felt Tom eyeballing her curiously and she flicked a microscopic speck of lint from her leg.

"Is he there now?"

"Mulder," she murmured warningly. Don't go there.

Ice chinked against her ear again and she could hear the crackle of his throat as he swallowed, "I'll let you go. I'm sorry I interrupted your evening," he said around an ice-cube, though he didn't sound sorry at all.

"Mulder -" she said to the dial tone, and sighed, thumbing the end button on the handset.

"Everything ok?" Tom asked after an awkward pause and she reflected on the lost intimacy of a moment ago, and her fractured relationship with Mulder.

Scully pressed her lips into a thin line approximating a smile, "Yeah." Tilting her head, she continued, "Agent Mulder's investigating the possibility the victims were chosen because they'd all undergone cosmetic surgery."

A look she couldn't identify flitted across his face as he took on board this detail, and he seemed to be weighing his next words carefully. "Agent Mulder was your partner?" 

"Yes."

"You were close?"

"Yes, we were," she said honestly, and she saw him process her use of the past tense.

After several beats, Tom reached over to squeeze her shoulder and then hauled himself to his feet, "I'm gonna get going. It's been a long week for you; you should get some sleep." 

Scully eyed him carefully, trying to assess where Mulder's phone call had left them, and he met her gaze steadily. Warm, blue eyes crinkled at the edge and she found herself relaxing.

She followed him to the hall and he turned back, his hand wrapped around the brass knob. She could smell the faint orangey perfume of the recently waxed floor drifting into her apartment through the open door.

"I'll call you about Sunday?" 

She nodded, and he reached a hand up to brush a lock of hair out of her face, his finger trailing butterfly steps on her jaw, thumb brushing against her chin; his eyes were black with want. She thought he was going to kiss her, and she thought she was going to let him. But then he blinked, eyes clearing, and he pulled his hand away from her face. 

"G'night," he mumbled, giving her lips one last lingering look, and she could only nod, her heart thundering the unexpected syncopation of arousal in her chest as he walked down the hallway toward the stairs.

Scully shut the door behind him and leaned back against the panelled wood. She closed her eyes as her heart rate slowed. Touching a hand to her cheek, where the skin still burned from his caress, a self- conscious laugh bubbled in her throat. She opened her eyes, hand still pressed against her face and her mouth curved in a smile, the expression feeling foreign and frivolous. Maybe her life wasn't so empty after all.


	10. Chapter 10

"Is everything ok honey?"

Scully looked up from her half-eaten plate of homemade ravioli into Margaret Scully's caring eyes and realized her mother had just spoken. "Hmm, sorry, what did you say Mom?"

Her mother's eyebrows knit together in concern. "You've been distracted all night, Dana..."

"I'm sorry Mom. I have a lot on at work at the moment, I'm just having trouble switching off."

"That poor university student?" At Scully's surprised look, she explained, "I saw you on the news... They were saying you've been asked to look at some other related cases too?"

Scully nodded, taking a large sip of wine.

Her mother hesitated, fingering her fork, "They said on the news that Fox is also involved in the investigation."

She suppressed a sardonic smile at her mother's ability to see through a layer of bullshit ten inches thick and cut to the heart of the matter. Margaret Scully had been wasted as a housewife. "Mulder is the Special Agent in Charge of the case," she admitted.

"How is he?"

She shrugged, "He's... tired."

Margaret received this pronouncement thoughtfully. "You know Dana, I can't pretend I'm not relieved you've made changes in your life recently. But I've always believed your life was your own and that you knew what was best for you." She reseated her napkin in her lap and gave Scully a meaningful look. "And I believe that Fox is a good man."

Scully opened her mouth to ask her mother what the hell that was supposed to mean, but snapped it shut as Bill walked back into the dining room with a fresh bottle of merlot. 

He refilled her glass and Scully took a long sip of the fruity wine, letting it sit on her tongue as she tried to digest her mother's cryptic words. Across the table, her mother elegantly speared a square of ravioli and slipped it into her mouth, her twinkling blue eyes giving nothing away. 

She pushed her own plate back with a mute sigh, feeling the first acidic furl of indigestion seize her stomach.

***

Scully rolled her head on her shoulders and glanced at the red glow of the digital clock on the dash as she pressed her foot a little harder on the accelerator. Twenty to eleven.

She stifled a yawn and thumbed through the pre-set radio stations, before resigning herself to silence as she zipped along the I-95 toward DC.

The evening with her family had been pleasant, on the whole. Her mother was in good spirits having just heard that Charles' wife, Sara, was pregnant again, and fatherhood seemed to have mellowed Bill's temperament. He'd gone through the whole night and not passed judgment on her life choices once. It must have been some kind of record, but then again it was the first time she'd seen him properly since she'd quit the Bureau. The fact that she was now practicing the profession their father's hard-earned money had paid for, seemed to have pacified him.

However as her mother and Bill had chatted about family news and Navy gossip, she'd found her mind wandering over the events of the previous few days. The case, and the intellectual challenge afforded by both the unusual MO and the anomalies in the slides, was a welcome break from the gang shootings and traffic fatalities that typically filled her schedule. She found herself eager for the following day to arrive so she and Tom could make merry in the Georgetown University lab with a side of pig's liver and some tritium. And maybe she was a little eager to see Tom again too, and explore their fledgling relationship. That was an unexpected but surprisingly pleasant development, enigmatic insinuations from her mother about Mulder aside.

Certainly, seeing Mulder again had re-opened some old wounds. And if finding out Diana Fowley was still very much part of his life had created a few new ones, it had also been the impetus in helping her to realize that her life was once again standing still - and she needed to start moving.

Scully glanced in her rear-view mirror as she signalled for her exit, and the glare of fast approaching headlamps on full beam almost blinded her. 

A large SUV pulled onto the slip road after her, continuing to accelerate until it was trailing her bumper by just a couple of feet.

"Just go around you asshole," she mumbled under her breath, hands tightening on the steering wheel as the car behind edged closer still - so close she could only make out the halo of the headlamps.

A glance at her speedometer told her she was doing almost 80mph, and she tapped the brake pedal in a warning, telling the car behind to back the hell off.

A horn blared and the SUV veered into the outside lane, pulling alongside her. Scully glanced to her left but in the darkness of the unlit ramp, she couldn't see past the tinted windows. At first she thought the car was going to accelerate away, but then it swerved sharply toward her. 

"Jesus," she hissed, holding fast to the steering wheel. There was nowhere for her to go, the edge of the road to her right was lined with steel barriers. Her heart hammered loudly in her chest and she held her breath, her body braced for impact.

And then, as suddenly as the SUV had arrived, it accelerated past her and into the distance. Scully barely had time to let out the breath she'd been holding before a loud bang filled the car and the steering wheel jerked out of her hands, the car pulling hard to the right. Uncontrolled, the Audi clipped the steel barrier, the front fender catching the metalwork at just the right angle and speed to flip the car onto its roof and send it screeching onto the I-495 in a shower of sparks.

The airbags flared and her seatbelt dug into her chest as the car's advanced safety features proved their worth, but her head still whipped round like a ragdoll under the force of the impact and smacked violently off the window. Scully struggled to open her eyes as the car ground to a stop fifty feet down the road. Her ears were ringing and bright lights flashed before her eyes as her head reverberated from the blow. Forcing herself to concentrate, she fumbled for the key and flipped the ignition off. Over the numbing onset of shock, she could hear the rumble of an engine idling, and thump of someone running along the hard asphalt.

"Oh my God! Are you alright?" a panicked Louisianan voice called, and a man's face appeared through the shattered driver's window.

She tried to look at him, but upside down and concussed it was difficult to focus on his face. "I'm okay," she mumbled at last, feeling like her head was full of cotton wool, "I'm okay."

The older man gaped at her, his eyes wide beneath bushy white eyebrows, and he fumbled in his shirt pocket for a phone. "I'm gonna call an ambulance, just you hold tight, Honey." 

Scully's vision darkened around the edges and his voice seemed far away. A dry, papery hand reached through the window to grasp her shaking hand, and dimly, she realized she was going to pass out. 

"You're gonna be alright," she heard distantly, as the world faded to black.


	11. Chapter 11

"Those things will kill you, y'know."

Scully whipped round so fast she almost dropped the cigarette, and slopped lukewarm beer on her scrubs in the process. She brushed ineffectively at the dark splodge, almost indistinguishable among the myriad of dried blood spatters, and considered flicking the offending cigarette onto the pavement. But smoking in front of her father was probably the least of her worries these days, so she took another drag and steeled herself for the inevitable fight.

"What are you doing here Dad?"

Bill Scully stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at her the way she'd seen him look at Melissa when she dropped out of college to backpack round India with her boyfriend.

"Your mother didn't want me to leave things as they were." Scully had a vision of her mother, all five-feet- two of her, bullying her naval captain of a husband into a heart-to-heart with his youngest daughter. She almost wanted to laugh, though whether at the thought of her father finally submitting to her mother after thirty years of marriage, or that he might overcome a lifetime of reserve to talk about 'feelings', she wasn't sure.

He sat down next to her on the step outside her apartment building, his spit-polished shoes scuffling as he lowered himself onto the dusty concrete. It was the most out of character thing she'd ever seen him do.

Eyeing her ruined scrubs and messy hair, he observed in a controlled voice that belied his inability to comprehend her or her actions, "You look tired."

She swallowed a mouthful of warm Bud, "I just got off a thirty-six hour shift," she said in a tone only a few shades away from belligerent. She was still seething from their last fight, when she'd told her parents she'd been accepted at Quantico and he had dismissed her like an impetuous little girl, rather than a grown woman who could make decisions for herself.

"Dana, I just don't understand why you're throwing away everything you've worked for to join the FBI," he said, making it sound like she was giving up a career in medicine to become a pole dancer. 

"I'm serving my country, Dad," she said tersely, "and I'm hardly throwing away my education - I'm two months off finishing my residency and I'll do my fellowship at Quantico. They have some of the best facilities in the country."

"What's wrong with the facilities at Stanford? I've paid enough for them -"

"Is that what this is about?" she sputtered, cutting him off, "You think you've wasted your money?" 

"Don't be ridiculous. It's not about the goddamn money, Dana," he exploded, face red with anger. Talking didn't last long did it Daddy, she thought bitterly, and immediately felt a pang that where she had once felt nothing but respect and awe for her father, she now felt suffocated by his rigid, paternalistic view of her how her life should unfold.

Her father reigned his fury in, clenching his jaw around his frustration. "Your mother's very worried that you haven't thought this through."

"I have Dad," she promised.

"I wish I could believe you Dana," he said, regret tainting his voice blue.

"I don't understand why you won't!" she exclaimed and he fixed her with a hard look, pale blue eyes cutting through her anger and indignation until she was open in front of him and the waves of his disappointment flayed her heart. In that moment she realized he knew; she didn't know how, but he knew about Daniel.

A flush crept up her neck, her chest constricting and the pinprick of tears stabbed at the back of her eyes. She stood up, tossing her spent cigarette, her shoulders bowing under the weight of her shame.

"I'm sorry I've been such a disappointment to you, Dad," she said, surprised that her voice didn't sound like she'd swallowed a razor blade, which is how she felt.

Her father nodded, and he didn't disagree.


	12. Chapter 12

"Miss? Can you hear me?" A cool hand squeezed hers where it rested on her stomach. "You need to open your eyes," the calm, male voice instructed.

She didn't want to. Behind her eyelids, the bright lights of her surroundings glowed almost neon and her head throbbed on the left side. Pain radiated out like cracks, as though someone had driven a pickaxe into a frozen over lake. Only her head felt hot and stuffy, not cold, and she just wanted them to stop talking to her and turn the damn lights off.

"I have to see her!.... Please let me through!" Another male voice, fearful and insistent, sounded from nearby.

Mulder, she wondered foggily, but through the chug of blood in her ears, she couldn't make out the voice properly. 

"Sir, you need to step back," someone insisted but the voice wouldn't be deterred.

"No - *you* need to step back." Definitely Mulder. "I'm her... boss." Or maybe not.

She pried her eyes open just as Tom scrambled into the back of the ambulance, the rig listing with his movement and sending a wave of nausea through her.

"Oh God, Dana!" he dropped to his knees beside her, his face contorted with worry.

Leaning over her anxiously, he grabbed her hand and she tried to stop her eyes from rolling and fix on his face. "I'm okay," she muttered through wobbly lips.

"What happened?" he asked tenderly, brushing her hair back from her face. His eyes skittered over her face and body, taking stock of her injuries. She felt herself drifting again, his warm, strong hand the only thing anchoring her.

A terse paramedic tried to nudge Tom out of the way, "Sir, if you could just move so we can -" 

"I'm a medical doctor," he snapped, not taking his eyes off her face. A small smile quirked her lips at hearing her own refrain fall from his mouth, and she let her eyes drift shut again.

"Well then you know -"

"What I know is that this ambulance should already be on the way to hospital," Tom's typically cheerful voice was hardened with worry as he harangued the paramedic.

Scully felt shadows pulling at her vision, and safe in Tom's hands, she let her eyes drift shut as the darkness swallowed her again. 

***

"Right, Dr. Scully, deep breath... and blow... keep going...keep going!"

Scully blew into the Breathalyzer unit until her head ached with fresh vigor and State Trooper Johnson finally said she could stop. She recognized him from a carjacking case a couple of months ago, and remembered thinking then that he looked about fifteen. He hadn't aged since. He stepped back to wait for the reading to process and she let her shoulders dip fractionally as she sat on the gurney in the sea-foam green ER room, her legs dangling over the side.

Tom inched closer and rubbed her back, "How are you feeling?"

"Groggy," she admitted, wishing they would dim the lights and that she was home in bed. "You don't have to stay here you know, it's late."

He gave her a look, "I'm not going anywhere," and pulled her into his arms. It should've felt strange; he was her boss and though it seemed like things might be about to change between them, nothing had happened yet. But as she relaxed into his embrace, threading her own arms around his waist and burying her face in his shoulder, she found the only thing she felt was comforted.

"Have you had anything to drink tonight, ma'am," State Trooper Johnson asked, frowning at the readout whilst scribbling some notes in his pad. 

"I had wine with dinner," she said, thinking a DUI was all she needed.

He looked at her studiously for a moment and then nodded. "Okay Dr. Scully, we're done," he said, pocketing his notepad, "Come down to the station on Monday to go over your statement."

She nodded tiredly without moving her head from Tom's chest and watched him leave, the heavy grey door swinging shut behind him. Tom pulled back to look down at her, cupping her head gently with both hands, his thumbs smoothing the skin in front of her ears. 

"Excuse me," they both turned toward the door as a young looking nurse poked her head into the room. She looked chagrined, and when she continued, Scully understood why. "There's a Mr. Scully and a Mr. Mulder here to see you."

"Okay," Scully sighed.

Mulder and Bill stomped into the room, animosity dripping off them like scum from a sewer rat, and Tom released his hold on her, stepping back a few inches for propriety's sake.

"What the hell happened, Dana?" Bill gasped taking in her bruised cheekbone and dazed expression.

"I got in an accident on the way back from Mom's. Someone tried to run me off the road and then I think my tire blew."

"It did," Mulder said, his hands stuffed deep in his trouser pockets. "I just got a call from the police. They pulled a 4-inch nail from the burst tire."

"Jesus Dana," Bill huffed, like she'd asked for someone to try to kill her, and she would've rolled her eyes if her head hadn't hurt so much.

Tom shuffled beside her and then extended his hand toward Bill, "I'm Tom Dreighton; we spoke on the phone?"

Bill gave him the once over and apparently decided that anyone was a step up from Mulder. He shook Tom's hand, "Bill Scully. It's a good thing you were passing by."

"What? You just happened to be passing?" Mulder sniffed, eyes narrowed as he studied Tom.

"Actually, yes. I had dinner at my brother's in Calverton and I recognized Dana's car as I was passing."

"Recognized it?" 

Tom looked at Mulder like he'd grown another head, "The license plates?" he said, like he couldn't believe he had to state the obvious to this schmuck. "What's your point, Agent Mulder?"

"He doesn't have one. He's just trying to make excuses for the fact that Dana's back in the hospital not a week after he shows up in her life again."

"For God's sake, can we not get into this now?" Scully snapped, her head pounding.

Tom's warm hand pressed against her back in reassurance and she sucked in a deep, calming breath. Mulder and her brother locked onto the caress with eyes like laser sights. 

"Do you think this is related to the case?" she asked Mulder.

"You've been associated with the case in the media, it might have made you a target.... MPDC are going to have an officer keep an eye on your building when you're discharged." He glanced furtively at Tom, "I assume you're going back to your own apartment?"

Despite her concussion, she shot him a look that should've made his dick shrivel and he ducked his head contritely.

"Do you still have a weapon?"

She nodded whilst Bill baulked, "Jesus, do you think she'll need one?"

"I don't think she should take any chances."

"Just what the Hell have you got her mixed up in?"

"Bill -" she said warningly as her brother glowered at Mulder, and he reluctantly met her placating gaze. "I'll be fine. I have a gun and I know how to use it."

A flicker of a smirk crossed Mulder's tired face, "I can vouch for that."


	13. Chapter 13

The tan leather holster rustled against the soft black merino of her turtleneck as she unclipped it from her waistband, and laid the P228 on Skinner's desk with a muffled thud. Her hip felt naked without the weight and heat of the Sig, and it was strange to think she would never again carry a weapon. Not in DC at any rate.

Reaching into the inside pocket of her jacket, her fingers closed around her badge. The black leather was warped from seven years in her breast pocket, faded at the corners, and the leather was soft and warm from her body heat. She placed the badge on Skinner's desk next to the gun, letting her fingers linger for a brief second before pulling her hand away and stepping back. She looked up into Skinner's eyes and knew he was remembering another time when she'd handed over her weapon and badge to him, under very different circumstances.

Or perhaps not so different. She could tell herself that this time the decision had been hers, but really, what choice had she had? 

"Well," Skinner said, stepping round the desk, and she was glad when he didn't follow it up with some vacuous lie about what a pleasure it had been to work with her.

"Well," she echoed and tilted her head marginally as he looked down at her with his paternalistic face and stern spectacles. Walter Skinner would've gotten on well with her father. They could've swapped war stories and commiserated about the ridiculous notion of women cutting it in Department of Justice. Actually that was unfair, she reasoned, thinking of the glowing letter of recommendation Skinner had given her; she'd scarcely recognized herself in the paragraphs of sinuous approbation.

"Good luck, Dana," he tendered, and his smile made him look years younger.

"You too, Sir," she said, taking one last look around the office she had spent so many hours in and then nodding a final goodbye toward this man who she had mistrusted, disobeyed and ultimately come to respect.

Light of hip and with a burning hole in the breast pocket of her black leather jacket, she stepped through the heavy oak door of Skinner's office for the last time and made her way down the hallway and into the elevator.

Stepping into the mirrored cabin between an agent from Finance she vaguely recognized and Felicity Klein, AD Cassidy's secretary, the doors had almost closed when a hand pushed them open again. She glanced up and found herself looking at Mulder as he slipped into the elevator and stood beside her. Her heart was in her mouth.

Mulder nodded at the agent from Finance and thumbed the 'B', his arm brushing her jacket as he reached past her. The silence in the elevator seemed unnaturally quiet to Scully, and though she dare not look up from the scuff on the door she'd fixed her gaze on, she could sense the eyes of Cassidy's secretary and the other agent flitting between her and Mulder.

"Scully," he said, at last acknowledging her, his rumbling voice crackling in the confined space.

She swallowed hard and tried to encourage her heart to sink back to its normal position. "Mulder," she returned, watching the LED display count down the floors. She almost wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation; it was like a bad sketch.

The display hit '1' and the doors opened onto the bustle of the Hoover Building lobby. The other agent and Cassidy's secretary reluctantly exited ahead of her, Felicity casting one last surreptitious glance over her shoulder before a throng of tourists swallowed her up. Just as Scully moved to follow, Mulder's hand closed around her wrist.

"Can we talk?" he mumbled, not quite meeting her surprised eyes. "Please?"

"Mulder," she said quietly, that one word infused with a whole conversation. Don't do this to me. I'm still hurting. We can't go back from here.

"Please Scully.. just... l want to..." He sighed and rubbed his thumb over the veins in her wrist, "Can we just get a coffee and talk?"

Scully swallowed the reservations which threatened to choke her and nodded.


	14. Chapter 14

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Tom asked, pushing back from the bench as he looked up from the electron microscope. 

"We had a date, I thought."

He waved vaguely at the equipment-laden bench behind him and squeezed her shoulder with his other hand. "I could've managed - you should be resting, Dana."

She shrugged off his concern, but enjoyed the warmth of his fingertips brushing against her neck, just under the collar of her blouse. "Have you found anything?"

He looked her over, eyes lingering on the bruises on her face. He'd reluctantly agreed to leave the hospital at 2am on her promises that she was fine, and the State Police's insistence he move his car off the hard shoulder of I-495. Judging by his mussed hair and the rings under his eyes, he hadn't been to bed yet.

"Yes," he said at last, giving her shoulder a final squeeze, "but I'm not really sure what to make of it. I think that somehow, it's the semen that's causing this."

Five years of listening to Mulder's crackpot theories had helped her to perfect her poker face, and Scully kept her mouth shut while Tom tried to explain a theory that he clearly had difficulty believing himself.

"You know that one of tritium's decay products is helium-3, and that one of the ways tritium is made is when helium-3 expels a proton and is converted back into tritium, right?"

She nodded slowly, "Yes, but that's in a nuclear reactor."

"I know, but when I really looked at the report I found that there were traces of helium-3 in the abdominal cavity. And also another substance, something inorganic that I don't recognize. What if... Dana, what if somehow this other substance could produce the energy required to convert helium-3 into tritium, and infuse it right through the surrounding tissue?"

Scully gaped at him for a moment as her mind processed the implications of what he was suggesting. "Say that were even possible, Tom, surely the energy created would cause damage way beyond just making the affected tissue fluoresce? And there was no evidence of that... "

"I know what I'm describing sounds ludicrous. I can't truly believe I'm standing here even suggesting it - but Dana, I've never seen anything like this substance I found."

"What about the DNA tests run on the previous semen samples?"

Tom unearthed a black film from a pile of papers on the bench and slid it towards her. "This is the Southern Blot from Amanda York. She's the only victim where one seems to have been run. The DNA profiling was just a standard PCR for the other victims."

Scully held the film up to the light and squinted at the pattern of hybridization. One line stood out in particular, and her stomach sank as her eyes flicked between the film and Tom's face, and she could see he recognized the anomaly, even if he didn't understand it.

"The thing I have to ask myself," he said slowly, "is, what kind of a man would have semen like this?"

Scully swallowed hard as her mind filled in the blank. An inhuman one.

***

Scully leaned over the counter while she waited for the kettle to boil, and let her eyes drift shut. Her head throbbed dully and a long afternoon in the Georgetown Physics Department had left her with more questions than answers. Try as they might, without the unknown compound they'd found in Amanda York, they had not been able to recreate the fluorescent effect of the organs, and she had to admit Tom's theory, though wild, seemed more plausible as the afternoon went on.

When Tom had finally walked her back to her rental car just before 6pm, he'd looked tired and overwhelmed. But his lips had found hers with a quiet intensity, which grew as he pressed her into the unforgiving door of the car and slid his tongue into her mouth. Enjoying the feel of his hands running over her hips and arms, she'd slid her own fingers into his hair, scraping her nails over his scalp, and he had moaned encouragingly into her mouth.

Perhaps it was the residual buzz of concussion, or the implications worrying at the edge of her mind about just who, or what, had been killing these women, but even as she'd felt the hard burn of his erection build against her stomach, and her own body hummed under his touch, she hadn't been able to quell the uneasy feeling that mingled with arousal in her stomach. She wanted Tom, wanted to feel his body against hers and to forget about the world around them - but tonight wasn't the night. 

Sensing her reserve, his kisses had softened until their mouths parted and he rested his forehead against hers. With a jolt, she'd remembered Mulder doing exactly the same thing, but then she'd closer her eyes and sucked in a breath through her nose. Tom smelled nothing like Mulder, felt nothing like Mulder. He was muscular where Mulder was lean, broader across the shoulders, and whenever Mulder had pressed his forehead to hers, he had not been pressing an erection into her stomach at the same time.

When their breathing had slowed and her knees felt a little more solid under her, she'd pressed one more kiss against the corner of his mouth and slid into the car. Looking up at Tom's open face, she'd given him a small smile that she hoped translated as a promise, and he'd smiled back as she reversed out of the space. He'd watched her drive away until he was just a tiny blur in her rear-view mirror

After letting herself into her apartment, she'd showered and changed into fresh pyjamas and she felt vaguely human again. Outside, the Indian summer appeared to have climaxed, and rain battered the kitchen window on the back of the howling wind. The under-cabinet lighting made scarcely a dent in the shadowy darkness of her apartment.

On the crescendo of the boil, the kettle whistled and she flipped the gas off and poured scalding water over the teabag. A heavy-handed knock on the door interrupted her concentrated steeping.

Soaking wet, Mulder huddled on her doormat like a stray cat.

"Mulder, you're drenched," she announced needlessly as he dripped water on her floor, and his shoes squeaked wetly with every step.

"I came to check that you were alright," he batted his hair like a dog and shook rain from his hand before digging it into his pocket and producing something she couldn't make out in the dim light. "And to return your key... It doesn't seem appropriate to keep it anymore."

Scully stared at the tarnished brass key he held out, the logo worn and barely discernible. She sighed. Mulder could be as melodramatic as a teenage girl sometimes; it was almost a part of his charm.

"Mulder... come in and get dried off," she said, heading to the laundry cupboard for a towel, "I need to talk to you anyway." 

After a beat he closed the door, re-pocketed the key and shucked his trench coat and suit jacket. "What's up?"

"Tom and I tried to recreate the fluorescent tissue today, unsuccessfully, and it seems that the killer's semen may be what's causing this... reaction."

Taking the thick towel she proffered, he scrubbed it roughly over his hair and face. "The killer has funky spunk?"

"Helium-3 was present in the semen, and we isolated another compound which we think might be acting as a catalyst," she blinked as Mulder began to unbutton his shirt, and turned away to fetch another mug from the cupboard. "Mulder... I've seen the other compound before." 

She glanced over her shoulder as he dropped the wet shirt onto the kitchen table and tugged his t-shirt out of his waistband. For a second she thought it was going to join his shirt, but then he let the hem drop, rucking over his holster. "The green blood..."

Mulder's head snapped up, shock registering on his face, "Are you sure?" She nodded and he let out a mirthless laugh. "So d'you think They've changed tactics or is this just the work of a perverted ET?" 

"Mulder -"

He rolled his head back on his shoulders, looking at the ceiling, and he seemed done in. "Fuck."

Leaving him to process the research results, Scully moved to the counter and collected her tea, cupping the mug between her hands and citrusy steam warmed her face. For the first time since he'd arrived, Mulder looked at her properly, and she felt like he could see right through her. She felt uneasy under his heavy gaze and she set her cup down on the counter, bracing her hands against the cool tiles.

"Jesus Scully, your face," he murmured stepping closer and bracing his right hand on the counter next to her tea. The fingers of his left hand traced her jaw and tilted her head so he could get a better look.

"It's not as bad as it looks."

He looked baleful. "What have I got you involved in?"

"Mulder, when he killed Amanda York it was my job to get involved."

His eyes softened in acknowledgement and he traced the pads of his fingertips across her bruised cheek. Seconds seemed to stretch out, and over the smack of rain on the window and the buzz of the refrigerator, she could hear the rattle of his breathing. 

"I wanted to hate you for leaving," he whispered paroxysmally, "But I only hated myself for all the hurt I'd caused you." He moved closer, dipping his head so that they were practically cheek to cheek, the corner of their mouths touching. With every rasping word, his lip brushed the corner of her mouth like a kiss. "I miss you so damn much."

The prickle of his breath on her ear raised goose bumps on her arms. "Mulder..."

"Everything's just... less without you, Scully..." his hand trailed down her neck and arm, fingers slipping under the slick ivory silk of her pyjama top to draw circles on the curve of her waist. She should tell him to stop, that this wasn't the time, that they had more important things to worry about, that he had a ... whatever the hell it was that Diana was to him. But when she parted her lips all that came out was the shallow gasp of her breath. "And I can't get the taste of you out my mouth. When I close my eyes I can still smell you."

Pressing his nose closer into her ear, he inhaled deeply and she swallowed thickly on a suddenly dry throat. Her heart pounded so violently in her chest it was a wonder he couldn't feel it as he pressed his body against her from knee to chest. The provocative slide of her pyjamas against his sternum turned her nipples into hard nubs and her body hummed at the contact.

"You have to know," he whispered into her ear, "I would've done anything to get you to stay. But not that. Never that, Scully. I -" 

They both jumped as the phone rang and Mulder exhaled a muffled groan against her hair before pulling back to dig his cell phone from his jacket pocket. Scully slumped back against the counter, and she could feel a flush creep across her chest and face as she processed how close they'd come to... what? She wasn't even sure, but her pulse was still jumping in her veins and between her legs she felt swollen and slick. And when she brushed her hair behind her ear, her hand was shaking. 

Mulder shoved the phone to his ear. "What?" he barked gruffly into the scuffed Nokia.

She could see the outline of his arousal against his wet trousers and she quickly diverted her attention to her forgotten tea. It seemed cold in contrast to her overheated body.

"Fuck, Diana, where?" He ran a hand over his face, and she immediately knew there was another body. 

Scully tried to shift her sluggish mind into work mode and concentrate on Mulder's end of the conversation with Diana, but her thoughts were conflicted. About what it meant that something with the same genetic make-up as the Bounty Hunters was murdering women like a common or garden sociopath. About why Diana had answered Mulder's phone in the middle of the night on Thursday, and yet he had come to her apartment tonight, put his hand up her top, and told her he couldn't get the taste of her out of his mouth. About why she had let him, when just two hours earlier she'd been kissing Tom. And enjoying it.

She refocused on Mulder when she heard her name.

"...get another ticket for Scully. I want her with me on this," he was staring at her, his eyes boring into her as he listened to Diana espouse some argument which he disregarded. She held his gaze and for an instant, it was like no time had passed at all. "No one touches that scene until Scully's seen it."


	15. Chapter 15

Claire French was a beautiful woman. Five feet six, she had a curvaceous, well-proportioned body that drew as much attention as her pretty face. Her well-cut brown hair hugged her cheek in a shiny wave and for all the world, she looked like she was sleeping. Even in death her mouth curved in a smile.

Scully hopped slightly as she struggled into a pair of blue shoe covers and then stepped carefully over to the body, watchful not to disturb any footprints in the churned mud. She crouched down and pressed two fingers against the carotid artery feeling for a pulse it was obvious to everyone she would not find. Claire French had not moved in the four hours since her body was discovered, or judging by lividity, at least five hours before that.

Delicately, she probed the neat 'y' of stitches across the sternum and pushed back the woman's glossy hair to confirm that she too had a line of stitches around the hairline. Scully sighed and glanced up to see Mulder and Agent Fowley approach, heads inclined together as they talked. As she emphasized a point, Diana rested a hand on Mulder's forearm in the same familiar way Scully would once have done. An older man with an erratic grey comb- over, who Scully recognized as the NYC Chief Medical Examiner, trailed behind them. 

They stopped several feet away and Mulder craned his neck to see the body. "It's fortunate Diana was already in the city when the call came in so she was able to get here without delay."

Scully said nothing and tried not to think about what she'd been doing with Mulder when Diana's call interrupted them. She especially tried not to think about the fact that as far as she knew, they were having some kind of relationship - and yet three hours ago, Mulder had been feeling her up in her kitchen and telling her how much he missed her. Sighing again, she swivelled her eyes around at the dozen or so NYPD officers loitering around and shooting curious glances at the body. "Do all these people need to be here Agent Fowley?"

"I'll see what I can do," Diana's pale brown eyes were as ice-cold as her smooth voice as she shot Scully a false smile and stomped off through the bog-like grass to the west of the Pool.

"Dr. Scully it's been a while! Though not the most auspicious circumstances for a reunion," Rupert McGraw, the medical examiner, said amiably while Scully stood carefully, knees popping, and tried not to slip in the mud.

"Not this time Rupert," she agreed, taking a giant step to avoid disturbing evidence and almost landing on her ass. Mulder grabbed her gloved hand and hauled her to safety. "I hope you don't mind me tagging along on this one - we've just had a similar case in DC."

McGraw, who was eighty if he was a day and had been married for fifty years to a woman whose picture he still showed Scully every time they met, beamed down at her, "My dear, I can think of nothing I'd like more." 

***

Three hours later Scully peeled her bloodied gloves off and tossed them in the yellow bio-hazard bin. She rolled her neck with a crunch and pulled the formerly white plastic apron which had largely protected her scrubs and tossed it too. She remembered how bloody she used to get when she was in med school, how her anatomy professor used to insist that in the good old days prosectors would carry out an autopsy in a dinner jacket and not get a drop of blood on them. She had learned finesse since then but she still felt filthy, and she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear when it escaped from her messy ponytail. 

She turned round at the sound of footsteps on the vomit- green linoleum.

"Sorry we didn't get here earlier," Mulder rumbled as he and Diana entered the morgue. Scully was conscious of the contrast between her rumpled appearance and Diana's typically polished one, but as Diana scanned the room and caught sight of the chalkboard and the blood-soaked chalk Scully had used to write up the organ weights, her sudden pallor took on a greenish hue, and Scully stifled a childishly smug pang of satisfaction.

"You probably got here just in time actually. I just finished."

"Where's McGraw?"

"He went home. I didn't need the help, or the questions he would've undoubtedly had..."

"What'd you find?"

She shook her head, "I could probably photocopy my last report and you wouldn't tell the difference." Scully shot Diana a surreptitious glance, not sure how much to reveal in front of the other woman. Her lack of trust in Diana had been one of the main points of contention between her and Mulder the previous summer and she still wasn't convinced that Diana Fowley had his best interests at heart.

Sensing her reticence, Mulder supplied, "I told Diana about the unidentified compound you isolated. She's aware of the link to the X-Files."

"Well, synonymous with the other cases, the victim had undergone cosmetic surgery... a breast reduction, probably within the last eighteen months. And there was semen present in the abdominal cavity - I've taken the samples I need for a Southern Blot which I'll run tomorrow," she glanced at the clock above the door and realized it was already 3.30am, "...later," she corrected. 

"Again with the masturbation.... What does that mean?" Mulder mused, hands on his hips as he studied Claire French's waxy face.

"Well I could theorize about what it says about the killer and his relationship with women but honestly, Mulder? I don't know that any of that applies here."

He flicked his eyebrows, encouraging her to continue.

"We're not looking at for a regular sociopath here are we? I mean, what you said earlier about whether this was a perverted ET - you were being facetious but seriously, if this a case of a rogue Bounty Hunter who has homicidal urges, how are we going to catch him? Those people aren't on any databases. They can change their appearance at will. It'll be like searching for a needle in a haystack."

"So what are you saying?" Diana piped up and for once she actually sounded curious.

"That I think you need to look at this from the another angle. The plastic surgery is the link between these women - if we can find out how the killer is choosing the women, we can get him that way."

"You're not in the Bureau anymore," Diana reminded her tartly, and Scully clenched her jaw in annoyance at both the dig, and the truth behind it.

Mulder shifted and they both turned to look at him. "Maybe not, but Scully has the expertise to help us crack this one, Diana. Skinner's already okayed the consult."

Diana narrowed her eyes almost imperceptibly at this news. "Well, why don't we go back to the hotel and get some rest - it's going to be a long day tomorrow." She shifted closer to Mulder in a subtle manoeuvre that was clearly intended to convey a message to Scully, who ignored it and pushed the trolley carrying Claire French back into the refrigerator.

Mulder nodded at Diana before turning his attention back to Scully, "We'll wait out front while you get cleaned up." 

She ducked her chin in agreement and he steered Diana out the door with a hand on the small of her back. The unconscious gesture left Scully's stomach twisting painfully, and she didn't even really know why. She'd moved on, put Mulder behind her - though after his performance earlier, she realized that she needed to let Mulder know that.

I'm just tired, she told herself, even as her own back tingled from the memory of his hand. She slammed the refrigerator door closed. I'm just so damn tired of this.


	16. Chapter 16

"I've been dispatched to try and talk some sense into you." Their father must be desperate if he'd sent Melissa, family pariah, to talk her round.

Scully rolled her eyes and slid over on the swing-seat, huddling her coat around her as she made room for her sister. Melissa flopped down beside her and they sat in companionable silence, watching the swirling snow as it drifted towards the ground in the back yard. 

After a few moments Melissa pulled her hand out of her coat pocket and gestured for the mug of hot chocolate Scully cupped in her hands. Taking a sip, she coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "What the hell have you got in here?!"

Scully smirked, "Everyone needs a little kicker to get through Christmas in this house."

Melissa smiled back, "You haven't got a cigarette too have you?" she asked after a beat, and then mirrored Scully's raised eyebrow until her sister pulled the pack of smokes out of her pocket and handed one over.

Melissa lit the cigarette and inhaled leisurely, letting her breath out slowly, and finishing off with an expertly formed smoke ring.

"Who are you channelling, Butch Cassidy?" Scully snorted and took the cigarette to suck down a long drag herself.

They sat like that for several minutes, watching the silent snow as they shared the brandy-laced hot chocolate and the cigarette.

"Dad knows about Daniel," Scully said at last, burying the spent butt in the snow at her feet.

Melissa looked shocked. "How? What did he say?"

"I don't know. He didn't say anything, but when he came to see me in San Diego last month I knew," she slid another cigarette from the soft pack and lit it, taking a quick puff before she handed it to Melissa. "He hasn't been able to look me in the eye all weekend."

Melissa, being used to the disappointed cold-shouldering that William Scully dispensed when his children failed to live up to his expectations, eyed her sympathetically. "What's happening with Daniel anyway?"

Scully huffed a mirthless laugh, "He isn't talking to me either. They both think I'm doing this to spite them - neither of them can believe I could possibly be doing it for me." She dug her cold hands in her pockets, "He said he couldn't believe that he was willing to leave his wife for me and this is how I responded."

"Oh honey. He offered to leave Barbara?"

Scully swallowed against the bitter taste of guilt and pursed her lips. She'd told Melissa about the flirtation with Daniel, about the excitement of having this successful older man pursue her, about the hot and heavy kiss they had shared in his office. She had not told her sister when, a few weeks later, they'd slept together for the first time. Even as she'd welcomed Daniel into her bed, she'd known she was doing something very wrong.

"Do you love him?"

Scully considered. "I thought maybe I did, but now I think.. maybe I just loved the idea of him. When I realized how serious he was, I was terrified. I didn't mean for it to go so far." She dared to flick her gaze at Melissa's face and found that her sister was only looking at her with understanding and love. "I led him on," she admitted.

Melissa put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against her, resting her cheek on Scully's head. "You made a mistake Dana. But so did he, and at least you had the sense to walk away."

"What did Dad say?" she asked after a beat.

"It was Mom actually," Melissa confessed, rubbing her hand along Scully's arm. "She knows how much this fight with Dad is hurting you."

"She thinks I'm making a mistake too?"

"Mom only wants you to be happy, and unlike Dad, she trusts you to make the right decision for yourself."

Scully nodded against Melissa's shoulder.

"Do you think you've made the right decision?" Melissa asked softly, and Scully knew she was asking about both leaving Daniel and joining the FBI.

Scully thought back to their conversation the day before, when Melissa had told her not to forget what was really important in life. They were so different, she and Melissa, but they had the shared experience of childhood, and she knew that she could be totally honest with Melissa without fear of judgment. 

"Yes," she said firmly, and was surprised by the sense of relief she felt at saying it out loud, "I believe I have."

Melissa squeezed her shoulders, "Well then I think everything's going to turn out okay then."


	17. Chapter 17

The New York Field Office was housed in a monolithic building between Broadway and Lafayette. From the outside, the woven patterned building looked impenetrable and imposing, but inside the furniture was just as tatty as any other field office and the coffee tasted just as bad.

Scully slipped through the door of the operations room housing the temporary investigation into Claire French's murder. Once they had gleaned everything they could in New York, they would retreat to Washington to run the rest of the case from there. Scully scanned the room, seeking out Mulder. He was hunched over a desk squinting at some papers. Diana stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder as she peered at the paperwork too. Scully could see their lips move in quiet conversation as they studied.

Making her way over, she paused as her cell phone trilled in her pocket. Pushing it to her ear, she barked, "Scully."

"Dana, it's me." 

Tom's warm voice filled her ear and she glanced at Mulder and Diana and turned away, moving into the corner, "Hey, how are you," she said in a softer tone, cupping the phone to her ear.

"Overworked, since you blew me off to go run around with your old FBI buddies," he teased and she smiled in spite of herself. "Actually, I just got into the City myself. I have that lecture at Columbia this afternoon - you remember?"

"Of course, I forgot," she murmured as she fingered the laminated badge clipped to her lapel. So similar to her old one, the only difference was the red chevrons interspersing the blue border, which marked her as a consultant. 

"Well... I was thinking, I know you're busy but you gotta eat right?" 

"Uh huh," she drawled, her stomach rumbling at the mention of food.

"So... wanna grab dinner tonight? I have a great expense account," he tempted.

Actually, now that she was talking to him, she realized there was nothing she'd like more, and they made arrangements to meet at Gotham at 8pm.

"Dana?" he said just as she was about to hang up.

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking about you all morning," he admitted in a tone that made her flush and sent a twinge of arousal through her belly. Truth was, whilst she'd been performing the Southern Blot over in the lab, the technique so familiar to her that she could let her own mind wander, she'd been thinking about him too. Tom was a good man, she was sure of it, and more than that she liked him. Mulder, typically, had showed up in her life at a time of change and his reappearance and actions over the last few days had left her confused. But over the course of the morning, as she considered her growing feelings for Tom, she'd managed to find some clarity - and she wasn't going to let herself be cast in the role of best supporting fuck-buddy. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair - to any of them. She might mistrust Diana, dislike her even, but it seemed pretty clear that something was going on between her and Mulder, and Scully was damned if she was going to get in the way.

"I've been thinking about you too," she confessed huskily, and he let out a choked laugh.

"Damn, Dana, now I'm going to be thinking about you all afternoon too."

"I'll see you tonight," she smiled.

"Yeah, have a good one."

She disconnected the call and looked over to Mulder and Diana. Diana was standing back now, hands on her hips and her lips curved as she listened to Mulder espouse something she obviously liked the sound of. Scully squared her shoulders and made her way over, knowing that sooner rather than later she would have to clear the air with Mulder.

He glanced up as she stopped by the desk, "Scully, how did your test go?"

"As expected. It's the same perpetrator," she said and he nodded in agreement.

"Agent Mulder has confirmed that all of the victims had their surgery carried out at clinics owned by Future Medical Group," Diana supplied.

"And by happy coincidence their head office is in Manhattan," Mulder continued dryly, "We've got an appointment in an hour."

"I don't imagine they're just going to hand over confidential patient information without a warrant."

"No," he said standing up and shrugging into his suit jacket, "But I'd like you to come along Scully, your expertise might give us an edge."

***

"Whilst we are saddened to hear of these deaths, the fact that at one time or another they were patients of Future Medical Group is irrelevant," the Chief Medical Officer of Future Medical, Miranda Holland, said firmly as she set her china teacup down on the spotless glass desk.

"Hmmm," Mulder said noncommittally, casting his eyes around the expensively appointed office. "I'm sure that's of great comfort to the families of the dead women."

Dr. Holland, an attractive woman in her forties, narrowed her eyes but kept her mouth shut. 

"Your desire to protect your patients privacy is admirable, Dr. Holland," Diana leaned forward, affecting a chummy posture which was as sincere as a WASP at a country club, and Scully stifled an eye-roll. "But it would be of huge assistance to our enquiries if you could give us access to the medical records."

Miranda Holland demonstrated her own synthetic smile, "I'm sorry Agent Fowley. The privacy of our patients and staff is paramount. I'm quite sure the law supports us on this."

"We didn't ask you for any information about your staff," Scully interjected, and Dr. Holland's arctic gaze swivelled to her.

"Naturally, patient files contain some information about the physicians involved in their care," she suggested after an awkward beat.

Scully pursed her lips doubtfully and came at it from a different angle. "Future Medical Group has been quite successful in research into tissue regeneration, hasn't it?"

"Yes, we've invested a large amount of money in R&D, and we've had considerable success with regenerating skin and certain aspects of the vascular system. We've done trials with injured soldiers," she supplied, looking a little more confident.

Scully could feel Mulder and Diana's eyes on her, wondering where she was going with this. "You've received some substantial Federal grants."

"We applied for and received Federal assistance for our R&D work, along with many other medical facilities."

"Actually, Future Medical Group has received over $10 million more in government grants than any other facility in the last eighteen months."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mulder leaning forward in interest while Dr. Holland's synthetic smile disappeared. "I'm not sure I understand how this is relevant."

"How long have you worked for Future Medical, Doctor?"

"Since 1993."

"And you've been Chief Medical Officer since..?"

"The beginning of last year," she snapped, resurrecting her acerbic smile. "I have another meeting I'm late for. Are we done here?" 

"Almost. So it would be fair to say that you've been the driving force behind the R&D in tissue regeneration?"

"I suppose."

"Dr. Hammond, were any of the victims part of the trials?"

"No. It wouldn't have been appropriate given the type of surgeries they underwent."

"Well that would be a lot easier for us to determine if you would share the medical records, wouldn't it?"

An angry flush colored Dr. Holland's chest, standing out against the ivory shell and white lab coat she wore. She rose from behind her enormous glass desk and fixed Scully with a hard look. "Get a warrant," she suggested snottily. "This interview is over."

***

"What the hell?" Diana sputtered when they were all safely back on the street and walking the block and a half back to the hotel. 

Mulder stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at Scully with amusement. "I guess you can take the girl out of the FBI..."

She ignored him and, sidestepping a hotdog vendor, she responded to Diana, "We were getting nowhere with the 'oh we're all just old Pi Beta Phi girls, lets share confidential information and no one will mind' act. Something's not right at Future Medical and Holland's caginess confirms it."

"What's this about skin regeneration - you haven't mentioned anything before?" Mulder probed.

"It was the report that Kitty faxed me just as we were leaving the Field Office. I told you I thought Claire French's surgery was about eighteen months ago. It was three. Annabel York's surgery was also much more recent than the scarring would suggest. FDA approval Future Medical's clinical trials only extends to a small group of soldiers - but they've clearly overstepped that boundary."

"Maybe that's why Holland was so cagey - because they've breached the terms of their license?" Diana suggested.

Scully shook her head as they walking into the polished lobby of the Marriott. "Maybe that's part of it but look at the big picture: they're working on cutting edge cell regeneration, that is way beyond any other technique we currently have in medicine and they're benefiting from massive Government grants to do it. Run of the mill cosmetic surgery patients have clearly been involved in the trials and now those same women end up dead - eviscerated and defiled by something that we know is not completely human."

"It does feel like we didn't get the whole story from Future Medical," Mulder mused as Diana reluctantly peeled away to collect her messages from Reception, shooting them a peevish glance as they continued on towards the elevator without her.

Yeah no shit, Scully resisted the urge to retort, and rolled her head tiredly on her shoulders and glancing at her watch. If she got a hustle on, she could probably still make a quick trip to Saks for something to wear tonight.

"I want to go back tonight," he announced when the shiny brass doors slid open and they stepped inside.

"What?" Scully asked sharply, stabbing '32' for herself and '34' for Mulder, and digging in her pocket for her room key.

"They're hiding something and I want to find out what it is," for someone plotting an evening of breaking and entering, his tone was bland - but then trespass was not something new to Mulder. "Are you coming?" "I can't," she said as the elevator rose slowly through the floors.

Mulder looked surprised. "Why not?"

Because this is not my life any more, she thought, but instead she said, "I'm having dinner with Tom."

"He's in the City?" He looked chagrined, "How well do you know him, Scully?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, "What the hell does that mean Mulder?"

"I don't know, he just seems to have a knack for always being around."

"Oh for God's sake Mulder, Tom's not your killer," she hissed, and then she clamped her mouth closed and took a deep breath through her nose.

"Mulder," she said, forcing calmness into her voice, "I've moved on with my life. And I think you have too, even if you don't realize it."

He looked at her questioningly. "Diana?" she supplied, and he had the grace to flush lightly.

"Scully, it's not what you think."

The doors slid open on her floor and she stepped out of the elevator, turning back to prop them open with her left hand. "Mulder it doesn't matter what I think, you just need to realize we are not the same people we were last year."

"What are you saying?" he asked miserably.

She reached out to clasp his hand in her right hand, and she looked at their cupped hands for a moment, the contrast in size so stark.

"You've said twice now that you miss me and Mulder, I miss you too. You were my friend for five years and every day of this past year has been a little bit emptier without you in my life." She tilted her head until she could catch his gaze and she was startled by the emotion in his eyes. "I miss your friendship," she finished, emphasizing the last word.

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them, his eyes were wet and she felt her heart contract as she realized she was not the only one who had been confused. Last August when everything around them lay in tatters, she had offered him her love and he had tried to use it to manipulate her. And now, bereft of her partnership and under the strain of this case, Mulder had clearly somehow convinced himself that what he felt for her was more than friendship. 

He opened his mouth to speak and she pressed her index finger across his lips.

"Don't Mulder. Don't say something you aren't sure you mean," she whispered in a voice that was bleeding regret.

He pulled back from her touch like her finger burned and he shook his head. "Don't you mean, don't say something you don't want to hear?" he asked harshly.

Wounded, Scully let her hand drop and swallowed against the gravel in her throat, "I have to go." She let go of the elevator door and stepped back into the hallway.

Mulder shook his head in disgust, "That's right Scully, walk away - just like you always have."

His words hit her like rocks and she was sure she would have bruises later. A dozen retorts jumped to the end of her tongue but she bit them all back as the doors closed between them. Sometimes it was just easier to shoulder blame than hurt.


	18. Chapter 18

Scully cupped her hands around the white and green mug and raised the soy-milk concoction to her lips.

Mulder sat opposite her at the chipped mahogany table and swirled a wooden stirrer in his cappuccino. He huddled over in the chair that was built for someone smaller, and with his swirling overcoat trailing the ground around him, he looked like some kind of avenging angel.

Around them the bustle of the Starbucks on Indiana and 7th continued unabated, oblivious to their despair. At least despair was what Scully was feeling; it was hard to tell from Mulder's typically inexpressive face as he traced his finger over the pockmarked chequerboard on the tabletop and drew the froth-covered stirrer to his mouth to lick off the foam with the tip of his tongue.

Unbidden, a flash of his head between her thighs, tongue snaking out to lap at her hidden recesses as she writhed under him the month before, rose suddenly in her mind and she flushed, looking away and tapping her own stirrer on the rim of her mug. 

"So..." she prompted, licking the corner of her mouth, suddenly desperate to have this over and done with so she could escape back out into the fresh air and away from this consuming miasma.

Mulder met her gaze and she regretted speaking. Sitting all day in awkward silence with him would be preferable to having to acknowledge the eddying emotion in his incisive brown eyes.

"So. It's really done then? You've left the Bureau?"

"Yes."

He sighed and leaned back in the too-small chair. "What are you going to do?"

"Uh, I've been offered a job with the OCME. Deputy Chief."

"That's a good move for you," he said begrudgingly, and strayed his hand across the table to draw patterns on the back of her hand with his forefinger.

Her hand felt detached from her body as she stared down at the slow slide of his finger on her flesh and she nodded without looking away. "Yeah."

"I can't get you out of my head, Scully," he confessed quietly, and she knew from the tone of his voice that he wasn't talking about her rational scientific mind.

"I got a hard-on sitting next to a woman on a red-eye out of Des Moines last week because she was wearing your perfume," he attempted a smirk but it died on his lips, "She looked like Roseanne Barr, Scully."

Flustered and flushed, she snatched her hand back disapprovingly, "Mulder," she admonished.

He shrugged. "You can tell yourself that I only slept with you to get you to stay if you want, Scully." He looked off into the distance, "I don't know, maybe you'd be right." He focused his attention back on her, "But Scully I meant every damn word I said in that hallway. I meant it when I kissed you. I meant it when I was inside of you."

Scully's eyes stung with tears and she blinked against them feeling her eyelids burn. Her jaw ached.

"I mean it now."

"Mulder...I can't"

"Why not?" he asked urgently. "How can you walk away from me after everything we've been through?"

"Because I can't do it anymore!" she exclaimed desperately and then lowered her voice when people at the next table turned to look. "Everything we've seen, everything we've sacrificed and where are we Mulder? Right back at the beginning."

"I don't believe that Scully. We've never been closer to the truth."

"And what's it gotten us? Your father, Melissa. My cancer." Mulder ducked his head contritely and she shook her head in impatience at his misplaced guilt and added softly, "Agent Fowley." 

Mulder looked at her sharply and she continued, "I know she was more to you than just a partner."

"Scully -"

She cut him off, "Mulder there's got to be more than this."

He reached across the table and took her right hand in both of his. "The truth, Scully -"

"Would only be any good to us if we could change it."

His expression changed from suppliant to chary. "You don't believe that..." he said uncertainly.

"I believe that we are fighting against a machine that is so much bigger than the two of us," she said, screwing up her recycled napkin and stuffing it into her half-finished latte.

"So you're just giving up?" Mulder hissed in a disgusted tone, "It's too difficult so you're just gonna walk away?"

"I need..." What did she need? More from him? More than the truth? She shook her head, "I'm sorry," she said numbly, standing up and he grabbed her wrist, fingers biting into the delicate flesh.

"Don't do this, Scully. Don't do this to me." She had a flash of herself saying those words to him only a few weeks ago. Before. And she realized now how hard they were to hear.

She stared down at him and tried to convey the desperation and despair that was swallowing her soul but when she opened her mouth she had nothing else to say. She was exhausted, drained; she had no fight left in her, and Mulder must've seen something in her eyes that he recognized because he dropped her wrist like it was burning his fingers.

"Go Scully," he said, his voice dead, "Just go."

So she did.


	19. Chapter 19

"You look great," Tom murmured into her ear, pressing a kiss to her cheek as the Maitre'd held out a chair for her. His cheek was freshly shaven and he smelled of lime, and though he was usually well-dressed, he seemed to have taken extra care tonight. His silvery-blue dress-shirt was neatly pressed beneath a crisp black suit, and Scully found herself smiling inwardly as she pictured him primping for their date. It didn't seem like a very 'Tom' thing to do.

"Thanks," she said breezily, smoothing the starched napkin across her lap and knowing she did look good in the black Ralph Lauren cocktail dress she'd bought in haste from Saks after her fight with Mulder. She took a sip from the glass of red wine Tom poured her and forced herself to relax into her seat. It was a relief to sit down, she felt like she'd been on her feet all day; which in retrospect she had, and the fight with Mulder had left her tense and on edge.

"What's good here? I'm starving," she observed squinting at the menu.

"Me too," Tom said staring at her hungrily, and when she looked up and caught his eye they both laughed self- consciously. "I'm sorry, I told you I was outta practice. I've lost what little finesse I had at twenty-five," he admitted taking a gulp of wine.

She reached across the table to squeeze his hand, "You don't need to try so hard." 

He smiled back at her and drew her hand to his mouth, pressing a quick kiss against her fingers. "The tuna is really good here," he said at last.

They placed their orders and picked at the breadbasket while he filled her in on what she'd missed in DC and told her about his lecture at Columbia. It was bizarrely normal, and Scully realized it was at least five years since she'd been on a proper date in a restaurant. Longer than that if she narrowed it down to men she was attracted to.

"So what's happening with this new murder?"

"We've had a development actually," Scully said, and then paused as their appetizers arrived. Picking up a fork to spear a ring of steaming calamari, she continued, "I told you all of the women recently had cosmetic surgery... well it turns out they all had it done by the same group. Future Medical."

Tom looked up sharply from his shrimp, "Future Medical?"

"Yeah. You know it?"

He took a sip from his wine and looked uncomfortable. "My ex-wife is their Chief Medical Officer."

"Miranda Holland?"

He nodded and Scully raised an eyebrow. Small world. "Well maybe we'd have had more luck this afternoon if you'd been with us. She pretty much threw us out of her office."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," he said ruefully, and there was an awkward pause as he refilled their glasses.

"Well this is a little weird," Scully admitted, fingering the stem of her glass and wondering how much to tell him now she'd learned of his relationship with Dr. Holland.

"It's been over between us for a long time," he reassured and she shook her head.

"No it's not that. It's just...." She had no reason to doubt Tom; he had been completely forthcoming with her, and at the end of the day he was her boss - he had the same jurisdiction in the Amanda York case that she did. She couldn't really withhold information pertinent to the investigation from him. "I think Future Medical have been carrying out trials of their work on tissue regeneration outside the scope of their license - on these women. And now they've been murdered, and the fact that they've had surgery at Future Medical seems to be the only thing that links them. Someone there knows what's going on. Someone there may be responsible."

"And you think Miranda knows something?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly, "But she's making us get a warrant before we can access any of their paperwork."

"I know that she worked hard to build that program at Future," he said thoughtfully. "To be honest it was one of the final nails in the coffin for us; she was obsessed with it. But she didn't really share much detail about what exactly they were doing or who was involved." 

He looked sorry that he couldn't be more helpful and Scully quirked her lips at him in reassurance, running the pointed toe of her Tod's pump down his calf. He reached a hand under the table to squeeze her knee. 

"What did Miranda specialize in, before?" Scully asked casually, and Tom's hand stilled on her knee.

He looked at her in surprise, "She was an Endocrinologist. But you don't think..?"

"No," she said quickly, skimming her foot down his calf again. "No, of course not," but she made a mental note to do some digging into Miranda Holland the following day.

The rest of dinner passed less awkwardly. Tom's sharp mind and quick sense of humor made him good company and by the time they found themselves standing on 12th Street touting for a cab, Scully's earlier tension had faded into the background and she was feeling pleasantly buzzed. 

"Where are you staying?" she asked, scanning the street for a taxi.

"The Helmsley." He looked at her sideways, "My room has an amazing view."

Her mouth twitched in amusement. "Really?"

"Uh huh," he said turning to look down at her. She craned her neck to meet his gaze. "Would you like to see?" he murmured, bending to kiss her.

"Uh huh," she muttered as his lips neared hers, and his breath warmed her upper lip. Her stomach clenched in anticipation, and then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the yellow light of a cab for hire and she swung round, clicking her fingers in the air to summon it. The taxi pulled an illegal u-turn and rolled up to the curb in front of them as Tom pulled her against him and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

***

It seemed to take a long time to reach the 39th floor and Scully struggled to remember the last time she'd gone somewhere with the express intention of having sex. Jack probably, just after she got out of the Academy. God, she wasn't sure she even remembered what to do, it had been so long. The night with Mulder had been completely reactive, animalistic, an aberration that she wished she could erase from her memory, and as the elevator slowly rose through the hotel, she felt her nerve fading and her anxiety building.

For an irrational moment when the doors finally opened on Tom's floor and he stepped into the hall, she considered letting doors close between them and running back to her hotel. But when she looked up into his questioning face, she saw that he was just as nervous as she was. 

"Dana?" he extended a tentative hand, and she lacing her fingers with his, letting him pull her down the hall to his doorway.

His hand shook slightly as he struggled with the key card, but eventually they were inside his room and standing in front of the huge picture window looking at Central Park and the northern end of Manhattan spread before them.

She could feel the warmth of Tom's body behind her, and he rested his hands on her shoulders as she took in the view. "It's beautiful," she breathed.

"Not as beautiful as you," he said haltingly.

Scully dipped her head, "Was that one of the lines that worked for you when you were twenty-five?"

His hands brushed almost chastely down her front and over her breasts, coming to rest on her waist and he ducked his head until his lips were against her ear, his breath hot on the delicate shell. "I never knew anyone like you when I was twenty-five."

Scully swallowed against the arousal that was thick in her throat and twisted in his arms until she was facing him, running her own hands up the smooth wool of his blazer until her fingertips were toying with the short hair on the back of his neck. She pulled him down towards her until their lips touched and she opened her mouth to his sweeping tongue. He tasted of wine and mint and he hauled her malleable body against his hard one, lifting her and crushing her against his chest as he maneuvered them over to the bed.

Their tongues explored for long minutes and he seemed to manage to find a perfect balance between touching her reverently and leaving her with no doubt about how hot she was making him. Scully shoved his blazer off his arms and clawed her fingernails down the tight muscles of his back and hoped he could tell she was feeling the same way.

Worrying the zipper at her back, he finally managed to tug it down, and he tugged the neckline of the dress, loosening the fabric until he could lower his mouth to her chest and tongue her clavicle. His hand continued down to cup her breast and she moaned at the pressure, which even dulled by bra and dress, sent darts of pleasure through her uterus.

Tom's hand smoothed over her hip and down until his fingers edged along the bottom of her dress, caressing the silk of her stocking-covered thigh. He slid his hand up and up until he was tracing feather-light circles on the sensitive skin of her inner thigh above the stocking, and she shifted one leg to give him room to manoeuvre. She could feel him hard against her hip as he rocked gently against her, and his fingertips grazed the silk panties covering her apex. She let out a startled squeak and he pulled his mouth from her neck and searched her face. 

"Too much?" he asked hoarsely, his eyes black in the dim light from the street, and a claxon went off in her head. This is my boss. This is my boss. This is my boss. 

Her gaze darted between his swollen mouth and his eyes and she saw the unconcealed desire written all over his face. She shook her head, curling her fingers in his silky hair as she dragged his lips to hers and sucked his tongue into her mouth. He groaned against her and slid his finger under the damp fabric of her panties until he was pressing into her dripping flesh. "Oh honey," he broke their kiss and buried his face back in her neck, "You feel amazing." He stroked her swollen sex until her breath caught in her throat and she knew she was on the verge of climax.

As he worked her, she trailed her own hands over every bit of his body she could reach. She slid her hands over the tense muscles of his arms, the bones of his shoulders, the smooth skin of his cheek. She trailed fingertips down his chest, teasing his stomach between the buttonholes on his shirt and she grazed her nails over the thick line of his erection through the thin wool of his slacks.

She struggled one handed with his fly until his pants gaped open and she could slip her hand inside his shorts. He felt huge in her hand, her fingers barely touching as she wrapped her hand around the hot, silky skin of his erection and worked him from root to tip.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, grinding into her hand and he thrust his middle finger deep inside her and crushed her clitoris with his thumb. "Jesus," he ground out as her sex clenched around his fingers, and with her free hand she tugged his mouth back to hers. He swallowed her gasps as her body tensed with impending orgasm.

The tinny trill of her cell phone cracked the near-silence of the room. "Ignore it," she whispered into his mouth, increasing the pressure of her hand around his cock. He groaned against her and worked his free hand between them to grasp her breast and the phone, blessedly, fell silent.

She was so close. Every part of her body where they touched felt like it was on fire, and the deliberate, sensual rhythm of his hand between her legs was almost musical. Just a few more strokes...

Her phone trilled again from the depths of her coat pocket and Scully groaned loudly, pulling away from Tom in a slump. He withdrew his hand from her panties and sucked her juices from his fingers, making her insides clench in disappointment.

He flopped onto his back on the bed, the significant bulge in his gaping pants making him look comical. "I'm sorry," she said honestly, snatching the ringing phone from her pocket and holding it against her chest as she leaned down to kiss him softly, her hair curtaining his face. He cupped the back of her neck with a hand so big it almost seemed like it could span her throat and she wanted to toss the phone out the window and climb back into bed.

Reluctantly pulling back and sitting down on the edge of the bed with her back to Tom, she thumbed the answer button and pushed the phone to her ear 'Yeah?"

Tom rolled onto his side facing her, slipping his hand through the opening left by the undone zipper. She could feel his fingertips tracing a circle around the tattoo at the small of her back, and her pulse was still jumping from their recent activity.

"It's Agent Fowley."

If Diana was calling her something was wrong. Scully shook her head in an attempt to clear the fog of arousal. "What's happened?"

"Agent Mulder broke into the Future Medical building tonight. He said ..." Diana paused and then spat out the rest of the sentence. "He said if he wasn't back in 30 minutes to call you."

Scully let her head droop forward and she rubbed the bridge of her nose. Sensing something was wrong, Tom withdrew his hand and sat up. "How long ago?" Diana paused and the delay ratcheted Scully's agitation. "How long?" she snapped.

"An hour."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes," she said and disconnected the call.

Tom touched her arm softly, "What's wrong?"

She looked at him apologetically and stood up, reaching behind her back to redo her zipper. "I'm sorry, Mulder's in trouble. I have to go."

His frowned in alarm, "Maybe I should come with you?"

Shrugging into her coat, she cast her eyes over him. His rumpled shirt, his handsome face creased with worry. He was so tall, sitting on the bed there was almost no height differential between them, and she barely had to dip her head when she leaned in to press a soft kiss against his mouth.

"It's ok. Don't worry, Mulder's always getting into trouble. And he always comes out the other side." She stroked a tuft of hair back from his forehead. "I'll call you later?"

He nodded and with one last kiss, she headed to the doorway.

"Dana?"

She turned back.

"Be careful."


	20. Chapter 20

The taxi pulled up on 50th and 3rd and Scully could see Diana loitering in the alley between the Future Medical building and the bookstore next door. She thrust a twenty-dollar bill through the passenger window and, running her hand over her hair to smooth it down, she sauntered down the street to Diana's vantage point.

"Anything?" she asked coming up behind Diana as she peered around the corner towards the unmoving glass doors of the medical center.

Diana spun round to face her, gaze casting over Scully from head to foot, taking in her dress, her make-up, her mussed hair. When she finally met Scully's eyes, Scully looked back unflinchingly.

"Nothing. He went in, said he'd be out in thirty minutes and that was almost an hour and a half ago."

"Have you tried calling him?"

Diana looked at her like she'd fallen off a turnip truck and Scully cocked her head in apology for the obvious question. "Have you got a backup weapon?" 

When Diana nodded, she demanded urgently, "Give it to me." After a beat, Diana produced a Black Widow from an ankle holster and handed the small revolver over.

Scully checked the cylinder on the gun and found five rounds in the chamber, and with nowhere else to put it in this damn Ralph Lauren dress, she stuffed it in her coat pocket. "I'm going in."

"You're not even a Federal Agent anymore!" Diana exclaimed.

"Are you coming or not?" Scully asked, not waiting for a reply before she slipped down the dingy alley, hugging the side of the building for cover. A second later she heard the quiet clip of Diana's heels as she followed behind.

As she rounded the back corner, a cloud of fresh cigarette smoke wafted over, and she saw a security guard drawing heavily on a half-finished smoke. She ducked back against the wall, gesturing for Diana to do the same. The fire-exit door behind him was propped open with a fire extinguisher, but with the guard only a few feet away from the door, there was no way they could slip in unnoticed. Scully glanced back at Diana and, looking around for inspiration, found half a broken brick on the ground by her feet. Picking it up, she hefted the weight in her hand, judging how much force she needed to use. With one last look to the unsuspecting security guard, she pulled her arm back and hurled the brick towards the far side of the building, by the dumpsters. It landed with a resounding crack and the guard leapt to attention, tossing his cigarette and jerking out his flashlight.

He took a few tentative steps forward, away from the door and shone the flashlight into the darkness. Scully held her breath, and then as he moved further away from the open door, she darted from her hiding place and into the building, running silently on the balls of her feet with Diana at her heel.

Her heart pounded in her chest with exhilaration but she couldn't afford to lose focus. Mulder was somewhere in this building, and they had to find him. *She* had to find him. Think Dana, where would he go?

"Holland's office?" she mouthed to Diana, who nodded. They slipped into the stairwell, forgoing the comparative danger of the elevator.

Seven floors later, she was glad she'd kept up her fitness regime after leaving the Bureau, but her pulse still jumped after running up seven stories. Beside her, Diana's breath was quick and shallow, and Scully thought of the other woman's injury the previous summer. "Are you okay?" she whispered, and for a second, as she watched Diana try to regulate her breathing, she just saw another woman trying to survive in the male-dominated Bureau - where even when recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound, malady had to be hidden lest it be considered weakness.

Diana's concrete face softened for an instant, "I'm fine."

"Holland's office is right here," Scully murmured trying the door handle and finding it locked. "Mulder wouldn't have locked it behind him..."

Diana pulled out her lock pick and manipulated the lock until it clicked open. "We're here now, we should see if we can find anything."

They slipped inside the large office and Diana moved to the file cabinets on the far wall, while Scully woke the computer and tapped at the keyboard. "I've got a list of personnel here," she said, clicking print and hearing the laser printer on the counter behind her whirr into life. She winced at how loud it seemed in the quiet room.

Diana looked up from a folder she had resting on the open drawer. "What was that substance you found in the dead women - tritium?"

"Yeah."

"It's mentioned here," she said, excitement coloring her voice, and Scully moved over to look at the file. It seemed to be some kind of comprehensive DNA sequence analysis. Scully skimmed over the first few pages rapidly, words and phrases leaping off the page at her. Tritium. Phosphor compound. Teratospermia. Helium-3. "Bring it," she said and then froze as the muffled squawk of a radio sounded from the hallway. 

Diana slid the drawer closed silently and they both stood looking towards the door anxiously until a man's voice said, "Level seven secure," and they were surrounded by silence again. 

Grabbing the personnel printout and wrapping her hand around the small gun in her pocket, she looked toward Diana. "Let's find Mulder."

In the hallway, Scully scanned the floor directory by the elevator, "R&D is on the eleventh floor."

The prospect of another four flights of stairs soured Diana's face, but she followed Scully into the stairwell and kept pace as she pounded up the flights.

The stairwell on the eleventh floor appeared to lead directly into the R&D lab, the door protected by a numeric keypad. Scully pulled out her phone and dialled Mulder. She did not look to see how Diana reacted to Mulder still being number one on her speed-dial. 

From the other side of the heavy white door, the polyphonic chirp of Mulder's cell phone sounded.

The two women looked at one another and then back at the sturdy-looking door. Scully gave it an experimental shove with her shoulder but it refused to budge.

"If we shoot the lock, they're going to be up here in minutes," Diana observed and pressed the 'enter' key on the keypad. The LED display lit up orange and four asterisks appeared ready for the code to be entered.

Scully considered for a moment and then on a hunch, thumbed in 3016. The display flashed and a motorized click signalled the release of the lock. Diana looked at her in surprise and she shrugged as she pushed open the heavy door. "Tritium's atomic mass," she explained, not quite believing it had been that easy.

They entered the lab surreptitiously with their guns drawn, but found it empty. Diana moved further into the lab, re-holstering her gun as she scoped out the room. It was large, easily forty feet by thirty, and it seemed to house every gadget known to medical science. Scully thought of her lab back in DC, still one of the better equipped ME's labs in the country, but looking like a backwater Barbershop compared to this place.

"Scully! Over here!" Diana darted towards a workbench in the corner.

In a heap on the floor, Mulder lay unconscious, blood trickling from the reopened wound on his head, which Scully had stitched the previous week. 

Scully dropped to the floor beside him, her knees cracking on the shiny white tiles, "Oh God, Mulder," she breathed in a strangled voiced, her stomach lurching. She pressed two fingers to his neck. "His pulse is thready," she observed, running her hands over his head to check for other wounds. She leaned over him, her hair brushing his cheek. "Mulder? Mulder, wake up..."

His face felt clammy under her touch, the stubble on his cheeks grating on her fingertips. Mulder's eyelids cracked open, and his eyes rolled drunkenly as he tried to focus on her face.

"He's been drugged," she told Diana, glancing up at her as they both leaned anxiously over Mulder's supine body.

"Schul, you came.." he garbled drunkenly, and she looked back down at him, her hand clenching reflexively in his hair.

"Of course I did," she whispered, "C'mon Mulder, we have to get you out of here."

As she and Diana guided him to a sitting position, heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway, spurring them on. "Fox you have to get up!" Diana grunted, and they manhandled him onto his unsteady feet. Supporting his near dead-weight between them, they slipped out into the stairwell and let the lab door close behind them, just as the door to the hallway opened and two security guards entered the now empty lab.

Scully edged them towards the down staircase, bracing her hand on the rail for support.

"Wait!" Diana hissed, and they both stilled, listening as the sound of boots pounding up the concrete staircase echoed from several floors below.

Grasping Mulder's left hand and pulling it more tightly round her shoulders, Scully turned them around. "We have to go up." 

Clumsily and with less speed than they would have liked, they managed to drag Mulder up to the roof, two floors away. His feet tripped over themselves, and at one point he stumbled heavily into Diana, almost knocking her over. Sweat trickled down Scully's neck and under the neckline of her dress, and the breeze on her face as they burst through the access doors onto the roof was welcome.

She stood supporting Mulder's weight alone while Diana dragged a beat-up conference chair over to the access door and wedged it under the handle. It wouldn't hold anyone off for long, but it might give them a few extra minutes. Mulder leaned heavily on her; he seemed thinner than she remembered, but the muscles of his chest and arms were still solid under her hands. His head lolled to the side, nose cushioned in her hair.

"I almost had it, Scully," he slurred, breath hot on her neck. "Right in m'hand." She made a sympathetic noise as she scanned the roof. The only way down was the fire escape she'd spotted on the other side of the rooftop, and with Mulder hanging off her like an anvil and only Special Agent Wheezy to help, she wasn't relishing the prospect.

She opened her mouth to point out the fire escape to Diana when the access door rattled loudly as someone hammered on it from the other side. The pounding increased and the aging wood began to splinter under the force. Diana backed away from the door, pulling her gun from its holster.

Manoeuvring Mulder behind an air-conditioning vent, Scully slipped the tiny Black Widow from her pocket and ducked behind a vent a few feet away for cover.

The matt grip felt foreign in her hand, and the gun had none of the comforting heft of her Sig, but she was still grateful to have it as the access door gave way with an almighty crack and two security guards barrelled onto the rooftop. Scully stifled a gasp as she recognized their faces. It had been three years since she'd seen the Bounty Hunter in Bethesda, but the uncompromising face was imprinted on her mind.

The first guard immediately clocked Diana, and charged towards her, olive-green uniform straining over his barrel-like chest. Diana fired two rounds, her jaw slack in shock as rivulets of green blood oozed down his chest and he continued towards her like nothing had happened. After a second's hesitation she stumbled backward, spinning on her heel and trying to put some distance between herself and the guard.

Gaining ground, he lunged towards Diana, the shift in his body exposing the back of his neck. Diana dived to the side, stumbling over an exposed pipe, and she tripped forwards, lurching over the edge of the building with a startled cry.

Reacting instinctively, Scully fired a single shot. The unexpectedly strong recoil from the ridiculous little gun took her by surprise and jolted her backwards, but the well-placed shot was enough to drop the guard to the ground, his body already beginning to corrode into a bubbling, toxic green puddle.

Distracted by Diana's shriek, the second guard turned away, baring the back of his own neck, and Scully fired a second shot, bringing the guard to his knees on the concrete. His face was slack and expressionless as he flopped facedown onto the hard floor.

Adrenaline pumping through her veins and her pulse echoing in her ears, Scully scrambled to the edge of the building where Diana had fallen. Thrusting the gun back in her pocket, she leaned over the side, preparing herself for the sight of Diana's body on the sidewalk below.

"Jesus!" she exclaimed, finding Diana clinging desperately to a line of fascia, two feet from the top of the building, her knuckles white as her fingers dug into the narrow concrete strip.

Dropping to her stomach and stretching her arm down toward Diana, Scully's reach was just a couple of inches short. She strained forward trying to make contact, the wind whistling around the side of the building and slapping her in the face. "Give me your hand!"

Diana looked down at the street thirteen floors below, and then she tilted her head back to look at Scully. Her eyes were wide with terror.

"Goddammit Diana, give me your hand!" Scully screamed into the wind, muscles burning as she strained forward.

Diana squeezed her eyes closed for a second and then let go of the ledge with her right hand. Scully leaned a fraction of an inch further over the building's rim and grasped Diana's flailing hand with her right hand. Grunting with the effort, she pulled until she was able to grab Diana's hand in both of hers, heaving her back onto the roof. 

Scully collapsed on her back on the cold concrete, gasping for breath and then stumbled to her feet, offering Diana a hand up. She ran over to where Mulder sat slumped behind the air-conditioning vent, his chin resting on his chest in an unconscious stupor.

Breathing heavily, Diana stared at the toxic puddles where the guards had fallen with a stunned expression marking her face. She looked at Scully, goldfish-like, and failed to find any words.

"Let's get out of here," Scully said, looping Mulder's slack arm around her shoulders and heaving him to his feet.

Diana nodded dumbly, and when she pulled Mulder's other arm over her own shoulders, her hands were shaking.


	21. Chapter 21

"Is this a bad time?" Dressed casually in jeans and a t- shirt, Mulder shifted a little on the doormat, hands behind his back, and Scully smiled in surprise as she held the door open.

"No," she said, stepping back and gesturing him in. "No of course not, come in."

He walked into her living room, twisting a little awkwardly so that she was always in front of him, and she shot him a funny look. "Can I get you a drink? I'm making tea."

"Uh yeah, tea would be good. Thanks," he said, eyes darting around her apartment, and she began to wonder if he was drugged.

"Okaaay," she said, drawing out the word and frowning at his bizarre behavior as she moved into the kitchen and pulled another mug out of the cupboard with lazy satisfaction. Since she'd gotten out of the hospital, it was the stupid little things in life she'd found herself appreciating. Like making tea. Eating ice-cream straight from the tub with impunity because Dr. Zuckerman said she needed to gain ten pounds. Being able to smell again now there was nothing interfering with her olfactory nerve. 

Behind her, she heard a flurry of activity and then the creak of the sofa as Mulder settled onto it.

"So your mom finally left you in peace?" he called from the living room, in a voice approaching the vicinity of normal.

"Yeah, she finally went home this morning." She steeped the teabags and then tossed them in the sink, carrying the mugs of tea into the living room. "If I had to eat another bowl of chicken soup... well, I didn't want it to come to that."

"Catholic mothers do the chicken soup thing too, huh?" Mulder accepted the mug and she sat down on the sofa next to him, the cotton of her worn jeans rustling against the chenille of the sofa. 

Over the top of her mug, her eyes smiled at him, and he leaned forward to set his tea down on the coffee table. "How are you feeling?" he asked casually.

"I'm fine, Mulder." He nodded thoughtfully and she cocked her head and smiled slightly. "Really. I feel so much stronger... I..." she shrugged, self-deprecatingly. "I feel fine."

He nodded again and reached a hand up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, an intimate gesture that sparked goose bumps on her arms. "I'm glad," he pronounced, letting his fingers linger by her ear as he toyed delicately with her earring. His thumb slid over her earlobe to smooth the taut skin of her jaw and he seemed mesmerized by fine bones in her neck. With a blink, he smoothed his thumb over her jaw in a final caress and sat back. 

Scully hid behind her mug while she modulated her breathing; clearly all of the medication she'd been on had screwed her hormones up. That was the only reasonable explanation for why she was suddenly feeling so horny. It had nothing to do with the electric shocks Mulder's touch had sent through her body. Or with the way his worn grey t-shirt pulled across his chest so appealingly. And it definitely didn't have anything to do with the way he worried his plump lower lip between his teeth while he was lost in thought.

He nudged her big toe with his and she looked down at her tiny bare foot next to his enormous socked one.

He cleared his throat, and said "I brought you a present," and there was a hint of apprehension in his voice as he pulled a plastic bag from behind his back.

Scully eyed the proffered gift, videotape shaped, and raised an eyebrow. "Superstars of the Superbowl 2?"

Mulder shrugged and she set her mug down and took the green bag from him, unfolding the plastic and peering in at the contents. Definitely not a videotape. She snaked her hand into the bag and pulled out a well-thumbed book, the hard cover dented and frayed at the edges, the gilt lettering of the title worn and faded.

Scully ran her hand over the writing on the cover and under her fingertips the indents in the cotton board were smooth with age. "The Geography of the Heavens," she mouthed and Mulder's eyes bored into her as she gently opened the cover, the aged spine crackling in protest. The title page identified the old book as published in 1813 and she knew that she was holding something very special. "Mulder," she breathed appreciatively, closing her eyes and raising the book to her nose as she inhaled the camphoric, woody smell of the paper.

"Uh, I marked Gemini," he said shyly, and Mulder never did anything shyly. She felt him studying her to see if she remembered.

Scully looked up from the book into his hopeful face and felt the back of her eyes burn. Turning back to the book, she flipped through the pages with infinite care until she found the slender silver bookmark he had placed at page sixty-eight. Two thirds of the way down, in black garalde on sepia tinted paper, was the story of Gemini. It blurred before her as tears filled her eyes, and she felt a single tear slip down her cheek. A lump in her throat the size of a baseball threatened to choke her.

"Thank you, Mulder," she said at last, her voice thick, "For everything."

Mulder didn't say anything, just watched her as she stroked the neat rows of text with her fingers. After a moment she pulled her eyes off the book and met his gaze. 

He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone and wiped away her tear. "Will you... would you read it to me?" he asked hesitantly, his lichen eyes dark with hope.

Not sure she could speak yet, she nodded and Mulder's face relaxed. He nestled back against the brown sofa and tentatively she leaned against him, tucking her feet under her. Her head rested in the perfect hollow of his shoulder, and slowly, his arm settled around her back, fingers stroking at the soft wool of her sweater. She breathed in the comforting, earthy smell of him, enjoying the dry rasp of the book in her hand and the rhythmic beat of his heart against her ear.

After a moment, Scully found her voice and began to read, her tone gaining strength with each word. "Castor and Pollux were twin brothers, sons of Jupiter, by Leda, the wife of Tuandarus, king of Sparta...."


	22. Chapter 22

"What the hell was that tonight?" Diana asked as she hunched over in the burgundy Queen Anne chair and clasped a tumbler of bourbon between her still trembling hands. Her blazer was tossed haphazardly over the back of the chair, and the sleeveless peach shell she wore was soiled from her dangle with death.

Scully looked up from the file they'd misappropriated from Future Medical and took a deep breath. "Three years ago Mulder and I investigated a series of murders. A number of doctors who ... had the same outward appearance... had been killed, and we found that they had all been working on classified hybridization experiments. Through our investigations, we identified a group of men who had the ability to shift their appearance so that they looked like a different person. Those men looked exactly like the security guards tonight."

Diana took a shaky sip of her drink, and Scully continued. "We found that their blood was highly toxic to humans and the only way to kill them was to pierce the base of the neck," she rubbed the base of her own neck absently, her mind casting back to the investigation into the Gregors. "These men were the ones responsible for the death of the doctors."

"Why were they there tonight?"

"I don't know. But this file seems to be a complete analysis of their genetic makeup. I believe whoever it is that's been committing these murders, it's one of these men."

From the bed, Mulder stirred, and Scully walked over as his eyes flickered open. "What happened?" he moaned thickly, putting a hand up to the dressing she'd applied to the wound on his head.

"You don't remember?"

"I don... I'm not..." his face twisted in confusion.

Scully pulled his hand away from the bandage and tucked it back down by his side. "It's okay Mulder. We'll talk about it later."

Mulder's eyes drifted shut again and thinking he was asleep again, she stepped back toward the open file on the desk. Diana swallowed the last of her drink and reached for another miniature Johnny Walker. "Scully?"

"What?" she moved back to the bedside and Mulder watched her drunkenly, tentatively reaching for her hand and entwining their fingers. His grip was gentle, his skin so soft, and her hand seemed unnaturally sensitive under his touch. It was almost like she could feel every whorl of his fingerprint as his thumb stroked her thenar. 

"I'm sorry I ruined your date," he said with a doped-up slur still bleaching his voice, and sounding genuinely remorseful. "You look real pretty."

A pang of awkwardness shot through Scully and her eyes bounced off the tight look that was fixing Diana's face in place. She swallowed her discomfort and reached up with her other hand to smooth Mulder's hair off his forehead, "Shhh. Get some sleep Mulder."

"Okay," he mumbled drowsily, and in less than a minute his breathing evened out and he was asleep again.

Stepping away from the bed, Scully fingered the soft cotton of her coat where it lay folded on the side-table, with her ruined stockings stuffed in the pocket. "He shouldn't be left alone tonight," she said, feeling Diana's eyes on her.

"I'll be with him," Diana said evenly, hands still cupped around the tumbler, and the words cut through Scully like a scalpel. She looked up into Diana's cool brown eyes and saw that she'd been dismissed.

She was no longer needed. She'd been replaced in Mulder's life, and the realization left her winded. 

She nodded blindly and scooped her coat off the table, stumbling out the door with leaden feet. 

In the hallway, Scully pressed her back against the oak- veneered door and squeezed her eyes shut. This was what she'd wanted, wasn't it?

She swallowed the unexpected sob that welled in her throat and tightened her grip on her coat until her knuckles went white. Make up your fucking mind, Dana.

***

The cigarettes taunted her. The crinkle of the cellophane being unwrapped. The papery rustle of the foil tearing. 

If Diana hadn't phoned last night, she would've slept with Tom. 

The inhale, the exhale.

But this morning how would she have felt? Sated? 

The bitter bite of the smoke on the back of her throat. The rush and the calm. 

Or would the cold fist of reality have tightened on her heart, whispering in her ear the word: liar. 

Scully sat rigidly on the end of the bed, hands folded in her lap, and she swallowed against the imaginary hint of rich tobacco on her tongue as she stared at the pack of Marlboros on the dresser at the foot of the bed.

A loud knock on the door drew her attention away and her eyes swivelled to the door. Another knock rattled the security chain and she stood up and swept the pack of cigarettes into the dresser drawer, slapping it shut.

Through the peephole she saw Mulder leaning against her doorframe, his right hand gripping the frame by his head. His hair was still damp from the shower, and a fresh Band-Aid covered the wound on his forehead. 

She swallowed again, tasting only toothpaste, and opened the door.

"Mulder. How are you feeling?"

"Actually, like I had a great night's sleep," he admitted, letting go of the doorframe and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He looked from the dark rings under her eyes to the unmade bed behind her, and nudged her with his elbow. "Which is more than you and Diana got, I hear."

Scully ducked her chin and stepped back to let him into the room, "I've had less eventful nights." She searched his eyes for signs of persistent intoxication, and he met her gaze head-on, his eyes open and supplicant. Pleading with her - and for what? She was afraid to ask.

She looked away and grabbed her suitcase, swinging it onto the bed and opening the lid. "I think they gave you a low-grade sedative. Do you remember anything?" her voice sounded reedy and distant, as she moved a few small piles of folded clothes from drawers into the case. 

"I remember breaking into the lab and finding a list of all the patients who'd had skin grafts. And then a security guard who looked like one of the Bounty Hunters burst in and smacked me over the head with a gun."

Stuffing her make-up case in the corner of the suitcase, she glanced over her shoulder at him doubtfully, "I don't know why he didn't kill you. Or why he left you there unconscious."

"Maybe he went for backup," he suggested to her back, adding softly after a moment, "I remember that you came for me." 

She flipped the lid of her suitcase shut and when she slid the zipper closed on the indestructible Samsonite, the noise seemed deafening. 

"You're going back to DC?" he asked benignly.

"You don't need me to be here anymore; I can give you my medical input over the phone and I'll be better equipped in Washington to analyze the data we found last night." She cleared her throat and forced herself to meet his gaze, "I have things I need to get back to."

He looked like there were many things he wanted to say, but instead he just drew a sunflower seed from his pocket and slipped it between his lips.

Suddenly, the air around them seemed oppressive and she hefted the case onto the floor and looked up at Mulder with an inscrutable face. There didn't seem to be enough space in the room for all of the unspoken words between them.

Mulder flicked the spent shell in the trashcan. "Diana said she would've been dead if it wasn't for you." 

She shrugged. "I did what I had to do. Diana didn't know how to kill the Bounty Hunters." She slid her laptop into her briefcase, "Did you get a copy of the patient list?"

"No, but Skinner's old college buddy is a District Judge here. He's gonna sign the subpoena this morning." He watched her pack up her paperwork from the desk and his eyes landed on a book on the bedside table. "You still have this," he said, as though she might have thrown it out, and he picked up the old book and ran his fingertips over the cover.

"Of course I do," she said, watching him thumb through the pages. His body went very still when he found the bookmark, still marking the story of Castor and Pollux, and from across the room she could see his throat bob. 

"Scully, I -" he began seriously, looking at her with inexorable sorrow, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry when his cell phone rang, shattering the pathos. He sighed and pulled the phone out of his pocket, pressing it to his ear. "Mulder... hmmm... ok...ALRIGHT. We're on our way down." He disconnected the call with a sharp stab of the thumb and glanced back at the book in his hand. The moment was gone.

Holding the almanac out to her, their fingers brushed as she accepted the book and closed it carefully, tucking it into her briefcase, just as she tucked her feelings away like petals between the pages of a book.

"Diana's downstairs," Mulder explained, opening the door. Scully nodded and followed him out of the room, letting the door swing shut on everything left unsaid.


	23. Chapter 23

"God Dana, do you have to wear that thing to dinner?" Melissa gestured vaguely at the holster on her hip, exposed when she'd removed her jacket to help clear up the kitchen. 

"What do you want me to do?" she snapped defensively, flipping the dishwasher closed with her foot and tossing a damp dishtowel on the worktop. "I've been at work since five this morning and I didn't have time to go home and change. I only came tonight because Mom railroaded me into it."

"I'm just saying, it gives off a bad aura," Melissa sniffed numinously and divined, "Besides, you're only wearing it to piss him off."

Scully rolled her eyes and pulled mugs from the cabinet for coffee. "Really Missy, you're wasted at Barnes and Noble - you should set up shop as a mind-reader."

"Laugh all you like Dana but you're just like him."

"What the hell does that mean?" she grouched, opening and closing cabinets until she found what she was looking for. She twisted the cap off a bottle of Tia Maria and added a healthy slug to her coffee.

"Your pride?" her sister supplied in a tone that suggested a woman with Scully's education should already know this, and nodded when Scully waved the bottle of Tia Maria in her direction.

"I'm not proud," she huffed indignantly.

"So what do you call it when you didn't invite him to your graduation from Quantico? Or tell him you finished top of the class?"

"He wasn't interested," she answered weakly.

"Oh honey, don't kid yourself. Dad's always been interested in what you do - even to the exclusion of the rest of us."

Scully flushed; she couldn't really deny she'd always been closer to their father than her siblings - but that was what had made his disappointment in her choices hurt even more. It was like all the respect and faith he'd had in her had evaporated overnight like a puddle of seawater, leaving only the salty crust of her disgrace behind.

"And what about the way you snuck around with Jack - like you had something to hide because you had a boyfriend. All because you think Dad found out you had a fling like, two years ago? You don't even know for sure."

"I know," Scully affirmed confidently and sipped at her scalding coffee. Melissa shook her head and continued in a softer tone.

"Dana, I know you always bore the brunt of Dad's expectations... and you were hurt when he reacted like he did to you choosing your own path in life. But don't cut him out now just because he offended you - life's too short."

Scully digested her sister's words thoughtfully. It was true that after the bitter words she'd exchanged with her father when she first joined the FBI, she'd built a wall between them, telling herself it was self-preservation that was driving her. But with the unflattering picture of herself that Melissa was showing her, maybe there was some truth in it. She could not bear the thought that she had disappointed her father, and so it was easier to close herself off from him completely.

"Besides," Melissa added with a smirk, "now he doesn't have you to harangue, he's devoting entirely too much time to judging my life."

Scully huffed a mirthless laugh and drank her cooling coffee. "I started a new assignment last week," she said, after a beat and apropos of nothing, "I have a partner now."

Melissa topped off her coffee, "Guy?" Scully nodded. "Cute?"

She shrugged, picturing Fox Mulder's handsome but unbelievably smug face as he taunted her in his office that first day. She thought of the haunted look in his liquid eyes when he told her about his sister, and the way he looked years younger when he laughed like a lunatic and the rain plastered his hair against his head in the cemetery three days ago. She met Melissa's gaze. "He's completely focused on his work."

"Uh huh," Melissa said doubtfully, over the top of her mug. "Well keep your panties on with this one Dana. Because you seem to have really shitty taste in men."


	24. Chapter 24

"Hey, Kitty said you were back." 

Scully, with scalpel poised, looked up from her demonstration on how to remove the brain with the stem and spinal cord intact, and found Tom in the doorway to the morgue. Though she'd spoken to him once they got back to the hotel after rescuing Mulder the night before, it had only been to fill him in on the main headlines. Scully found herself flushing slightly, when she thought of how things had been left between them. "Yeah, a couple of hours ago."

Tom's eyes creased at the corners in a smile, but his general demeanor was unusually tense. "I, ah, I wanted to talk to you about something," he said, glancing at a manila folder he held in his hand and then shooting an uncomfortable look at Carrie, her protege in the exercise.

"Now?" she asked with a frown, her left index finger wedged between the vertebrae of the cadaver splayed open on the table before them.

"No, no, I can see you're busy." He cleared his throat and tapped the folder against the door, "Tonight? Uh, drinks?" 

Carrie, who had her hands cupped around the brain, swivelled her eyes from Tom to Scully, and then back down to the jello-like organ in her hands. Her eyebrows flexed above her visor.

"Um, sure. I'll be done in a couple of hours."

"Ok then," he said, nodding to them both as he backed out the room.

Scully watched him go, and then lowered her scalpel. "Ok, so I'm going to make the incision here between C4 and 5," she continued as though the interruption hadn't happened. After a beat, she looked to find Carrie's amused eyes on her.

"What?" she asked defensively, and then rolled her eyes at Carrie's meaningful look. "Just be careful you don't tug too hard or you'll snap it," she said grumpily.

Carrie lowered her gaze back to the job in hand, but her eyes were still bright with amusement.

***

The Prince of Wales was Scully's kind of bar. Exposed brick walls and a long, pockmarked bar that was polished to a high-gloss finish. The white-shirted bartender, probably a grad student at one of the religious universities, poured healthy measures without the succor of an optic and the whole place was dimly lit by the kind of low lighting that makes everyone look good.

Tom gestured for another round, and she stabbed the frayed lime in her gin and tonic, and rubbed her gritty eyes.

"What do you think it means?" he asked dismally, systematically tearing a cocktail napkin into tiny squares and organizing them in piles according to size.

"It might be nothing," she ventured soothingly. He glanced doubtfully at her sideways, and then snatched another napkin from the dispenser, the muscles in his forearm flexing attractively. Three lead-handed gin and tonics, compounded by a complete dearth of sleep in the past four days and a residual headache from her concussion, left her wholly ill-equipped to deal with this latest development. Scully sighed mutedly and shrugged, "I don't know. I suppose it's possible Miranda has legitimate business with Roush Technologies." She wondered if her voice sounded as slushy to Tom as it did to her, or if it was just exhaustion affecting her hearing.

He ran a hand over his shadowed chin and lifted the recently delivered glass of Glenlivet to his mouth. "You said yourself, you've encountered Roush Technologies before. That they were involved in biomedical experiments."

She nodded and swirled her stirrer round her fresh drink. If she drank any more on an empty stomach there was a very real chance she would be sick.

"Well why are they making payments to Miranda? Payments that only started five months ago, when that first girl was murdered?"

Scully didn't have an answer for him, at least not one that he would like. "Mulder should've got the subpoena today. They should have access to all of Future Medical's files now." Except the one she had spirited away in her briefcase, that she hadn't told Tom about. She hadn't told him about shooting two Bounty Hunters dead last night either. All her other confusion aside, she had to question the longevity of any relationship in a life where shit like this was not out of the ordinary.

"I just don't know what to think," he rubbed his hands over his face and she could hear the scrape of stubble on his fingers. "I was married to Miranda for nine years... I never could've imagined she'd get mixed up in something like this."

Scully knew all about the despair of finding out someone was not who you though they were. 

She thought of her relationship with Mulder and the fucked-up shambles it had become. The ill-conceived night together being but a small part of a bigger picture, the crux of it was that over their five years together, they had become completely co-dependent. 

Mulder had his quest, and consumed by it though he was, his myopic pursuit of the truth had gradually widened until she too was caught in his tangled web of international intrigue and conspiracy. And though he had never truly accepted that it had also become her quest once it involved her sister, her daughter, months of missing time and a near-fatal illness in, it hadn't stopped his self-righteous indignation when she put her hand up and said enough was enough.

"C'mon. We should go," she pushed back from the bar and slid down from her stool, gripping the brass rail until she had her balance. "I have to get some sleep."

Tom tossed some notes on the bar and shrugged into his jacket. He looked down at her apologetically, "I'm sorry about this Dana. About Miranda; that you're mixed up in it now. When I opened that bank statement by accident this morning, I didn't know whether to tell you..."

"You did the right thing," she reassured as they made their way out of the bar.

When they hit the sidewalk, Tom dropped his head back on his shoulders and exhaled loudly. He looked over at Scully and twisted his mouth in apology, cocking his head and opening his arms, "C'mere," he coaxed, pulling her into his embrace and dropping his chin down on her head. He let out a sigh of contentment as she tentatively circled her arms around his waist and the muscles in his back slowly relaxed under her hands. 

In comparison, her own muscles felt rigid with confusion. His proximity, the fragrance of the soapy detergent he used, the vaguely tangy scent of his sweat, all prompted images from the previous night to flicker through her mind like a movie playing at forty-eight frames per second. Her stomach contracted with arousal as she relived the feel of his body under her hands, and then all but capsized in confusion when she thought of the maelstrom of emotions about Mulder that had been piercing her conscience for the past few days. 

Oblivious to her turmoil, he buried his nose into her hair. "This," he said against her ear as he rubbed a circle on her lower back over her tattoo, "is very sexy."

She stiffened under his touch, and she knew he felt the shift in her. "I was a different person when I got it," she confessed throatily, feeling the buzz of alcohol diffuse abruptly in her bloodstream.

He nodded thoughtfully, "I know you lived a life before I met you." Leaning back he studied her face, "I can see the darkness in your eyes even though you try to hide it... But I think everything that's happened in the past, your experiences, the people you've encountered - they've made you who you are today." He smoothed his fingers over her cheek. "And I'm glad for that."

She thought of similar words her sister had spoken to her the Christmas before she joined the FBI, about life being a path and the important thing being the people you would meet along the way. She thought of Mulder, and everything they'd been through together, and how the very thing that frustrated her most about him, was the thing that she most admired - his dedication to his quest. And then she looked at Tom, so open and compassionate as he held her, and she knew she couldn't pretend any more. With him or herself.

"Tom, I... I wasn't entirely honest with you about Mulder," she confessed haltingly, and his fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on her waist. "I told you we used to be close. He..." Was what? She considered, and knew there was only one truth. "He was everything to me. For a long time."

"You were lovers?" Tom asked carefully, and holding his gaze, she nodded. He let her admission sink in and his lower lip quirked thoughtfully as his right hand left her waist to reach up and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Do you still love him?" he asked gently.

"Yes," she admitted in a whisper, and it was the first time she'd ever said it out loud. "But I'm trying not to."

Resignation flickered through Tom's eyes and he smiled sadly, cupping her head to his chest with his right hand. He pressed a kiss against her hair, "If there's one thing I've learned in life Dana, it's that you can't fight love."


	25. Chapter 25

"Scully it's me. Where are you?" 

Scully pressed her cell hard against her ear and strained to hear over the sound of rain battering down on the insurance company loaner as she navigated the traffic lights at 11th and East Capitol. Accelerating alongside Lincoln Park, she could feel the wheels on the three-year old Buick lock every twenty yards or so as the car aquaplaned over the drenched road, the tires appearing to have no grip whatsoever. Water ran across the windshield in sheets that made it almost impossible to see where she was going and she fiddled with the stalks with her free hand trying to activate the wipers while steering with her knee. "Fucking car," she muttered under her breath. 

"What?!" 

"Nothing... I'm on my way back to work. I just had to go down to MPDC to make my statement about the other night." 

"Well wait for me there.... I'm coming to get you," Mulder's disembodied voice crackled down the line.

"What? Mulder, what's going on?" Turning onto Massachusetts Avenue, she almost had the OCME building in sight, and she pressed her foot down on the accelerator just a fraction.

"Scully I can't.... phone.... just .... your office," static drowned out most of Mulder's answer, but it couldn't dim the anxiousness in his tone.

"Mulder?" she shouted into the phone, adding a hissed "Dammit!" when the line went dead. She tossed the handset onto the passenger seat in frustration.

A few blocks later, the familiar redbrick facade of the OCME building loomed on her left and Scully swung into the parking lot and edged the Buick into a space between Carrie's Beetle and an aging Toyota. With her briefcase over her head, she darted from the car and through the sliding-glass doors into the cover of reception.

Fay looked up from her computer, "Wet out?"

"Who's Toyota is that?" she asked shaking raindrops from her briefcase. At Fay's blank look she pointed to the car out front.

"Uh, I think it's someone in to view a body," Fay frowned. "Is there a problem?"

Scully looked through the rain-smeared doors to the car and back to Fay. "I don't... no... there's no problem," she said, mentally kicking herself for letting paranoia get the better of her just because Mulder's cryptic call had set her on edge. She took off her soaking coat, and pushed her anxieties away. 

"Agent Mulder will be coming by soon. Can you just send him right through please?"

Fay looked like she would prefer to make him wait outside in the rain, but nodded her agreement as Scully swiped through the security door and hurried down the hall to her office.

The outer office, which Kitty shared with Tom's secretary, was empty and she slipped into the quiet sanctity of her office and tossed her coat on the rack by the door.

Pulling the folder she and Diana had acquired from Future Medical from her briefcase, she sank down into her chair and sighed. She was getting too old for this crap. 

Scully flipped the folder open and scanned the now familiar text. She had been right the other night when she'd surmised it was a report on the genetic make-up of the 'Bounty Hunters'. The report contained results from dozens of tests she recognized and some that seemed to be beyond anything known to science, and mapped out the gene sequence of the men, to the extent that she could see they were pre-disposed to peripheral arterial disease. Urological tests showed that they suffered from teratospermia, a condition which would make it difficult for them to reproduce, and yet more tests seemed to confirm Tom's theory about semen being the catalyst for the fluorescence they had found in the dead women's internal organs. The file she held in her hands was fascinating and shocking, ninety-eight pages of science so cutting-edge, if she hadn't seen the results with her own eyes, Scully would have had a hard time believing it was fact and not fiction.

But she couldn't see how anything in this report would help them to find whoever it was that was killing these women. The individual may be less than human in his genetic makeup, but his actions were, sadly, all too human. And Scully knew it would be likely be some mundane technicality which would eventually break the case wide open and lead to them catching the killer.

"Coffee?"

Snapping out of her reverie, Scully looked up to find Kitty in front of her desk holding out a steaming mug.

"Thanks," she said appreciatively, taking the mug and discretely closing the file on her desk.

Kitty was a pretty brown-haired woman in her late twenties. One of life's perpetual students, her latest endeavor was a night-class at George Washington in psychoanalysis. She lingered under the pretence of pruning a few dead leaves from the potted Peace Lily on the filing cabinet. "So, get up to anything last night?" she asked lightly, fluffing the plant's foliage, and even though her back was turned, Scully could hear the smile in her voice.

Scully rolled her eyes. She obviously wasn't giving Carrie enough work to do if she had time to gossip with the secretaries. "Not really."

Kitty turned round and leaned against the file-cabinet. "Oh? I heard maybe you went out..."

"Did you?" Scully asked dryly, and though her memory of the previous night was still tender in her mind, she couldn't really be mad at Kitty, who had only ever looked out for her best interests.

"Yeah... I heard maybe a certain doctor finally decided to make his move."

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"So, the reason you and Tom were both late into work this morning is... unrelated?"

Scully flexed her eyebrow in agreement, "And none of your business."

"Pity," she said, looking faintly disappointed, "You guys would look hot together."

Scully swallowed the sharp twinge of regret that mingled in her gut with guilt and forced a smile as Kitty gave the lily one last prod.

"Kitty?" she asked, just as her secretary made to leave. "Tom didn't come in yet?"

The younger woman turned round. "No, Helen hasn't heard from him," she said of Tom's secretary.

Scully nodded as she digested the information, and a fresh wave of unease gathered at the back of her mind. She tamped it down as Mulder appeared in the doorway behind Kitty, Diana trailing soggily after him.

"Scully," he said breathlessly, looking grateful to see her.

His palpable relief piqued her sense of alarm, "What's going on Mulder?"

"Tom's in the hospital," he said, and she stood up so fast her chair shot backwards on its wheels.

"What?!"

Mulder glanced at Kitty, holding his tongue, and Scully caught on. She gestured toward the door with a tightly polite expression on her face. "Ah Kitty, would you mind?"

Kitty clearly did mind, but she backed out of the office, closing the door behind her and leaving Scully standing facing Mulder and Diana as they dripped rain all over her carpet. "What's going on?"

"Tom's building super found him collapsed unconscious outside his apartment this morning. He's being treated for exposure to the same retrovirus I was exposed to in Alaska."

Scully gaped at him, "But how?"

"CCTV shows him being attacked by an assailant with a gun as he was entering his apartment late last night. He fought back and his assailant was shot in the struggle. I don't have to tell you what happened next..."

Scully's head dropped forward and she squeezed her eyes shut as she gripped the edge of her desk. "Oh God."

Mulder reached across the desk to cover her hand with his. "He's going to be ok, Scully," he said softly, "They're following your treatment protocol." 

"We have to catch this bastard," she said looking up into his face. His eyes were sympathetic as he held her gaze, but she could see the conviction swirling in the liquid chocolate, and she knew that he wouldn't rest until justice had been done. In her peripheral vision, Diana shifted uncomfortably as she watched the interplay between them.

"We've analyzed the patient list we got from Future Medical yesterday. All of the women who've been murdered are abductees," Diana said, flashing a quick glance at Mulder as she stepped forward, and there was a strange vibe between the two of them that Scully didn't have time to analyze. "There's one other abductee on the list... an orthodontist in Crystal City, Liz Byfield."

Scully processed Diana's revelation, her mind quickly working through the options until she settled on the optimum scenario. The only scenario. Mulder was shaking his head even as she opened her mouth. "You have to set a trap then."

"Scully," Mulder slurred warningly.

"It's the only way," she said seditiously, brushing his concerns off, nervous anticipation beginning to color her voice. "Let me do it."

"Scully, no."

"You have no jurisdiction -" Diana interjected, though where a couple of days ago there her words would have been marked with potency, her tone now was half-hearted.

"Mulder, yes. I know what I'm doing," she implored, ignoring Diana and focusing all her attention, all her effort on Mulder. "I know better than anyone," she whispered, and she forced her face to remain impassive even when she saw him deflate a little at the truth in her words.

Diana opened her mouth to speak, but Mulder cut her off with a raised hand. "Diana, can you give us a minute please?" he asked, and the older woman closed her mouth with a snap. She looked between Mulder's deceptively blank face and Scully's supplicant one, and nodded tersely once. With one last, stridently intense look at Mulder, she left the room and snapped the door closed behind her.

Mulder watched her go and then turned back to Scully. He sucked the corner of his lower lip into his mouth until the suspense of waiting to hear what he had to say was too much for Scully. She raised her eyebrows impatiently, and he relented.

"Scully, all of the women had been treated for infertility too."

Her breath left her in a rush, chest constricting, and she flushed at the sudden reminder of the intimate ways Mulder knew her. "What are you saying?" she asked tightly, searching his face for an answer that wasn't forthcoming. He just stared back with his impenetrable expression and his sad brown eyes, and she inhaled shakily. "Mulder, I'm not one of Future Medical's patients. I haven't had plastic surgery."

He nodded contemplatively. "But you are an abductee though."

"Mulder," she protested in the verbal equivalent of throwing her hands up in frustration.

He shrugged unapologetically, "I can't let you do this."

"It's not your decision to make!"

"Dammit Scully, I was wrong to involve you in this. I'm not gonna compound that mistake by letting you put yourself at risk."

"Mulder I *am* involved now and pretending otherwise isn't going to change that." He shook his head as she spoke, like a little boy not wanting to hear the lecture. 

She took a deep breath, softening her tone, as she said the word she had hardly ever used with him. "Let me finish this, Mulder. Please."

"Schully..." he moaned, drawing out her name in frustration and cocking his head as he looked at her, genuinely torn. He sighed. "Skinner's not gonna like this."

She suppressed a smirk; nothing new there then.

"There's something else," Scully said, as Mulder moved to leave and he turned back warily. "Miranda Holland is on payroll with Roush."

Mulder exhaled on a whistle. "How..?"

"She's Tom's ex-wife. One of her bank statements got mixed up in some mail she gave him and he opened it by accident." She added pre-emptively, "He didn't have to tell me."

Mulder's tongue worried the inside of his cheek and he looked chastened. "I'll do some digging," he said, opening the office door and looking back as he held onto the doorjamb. "Thank you, Scully," he added, and she wasn't sure for what, but the marl flecks in his eyes told her he meant it.


	26. Chapter 26

Yo-Yo Ma was playing the prelude from the Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 as Scully approached the mahogany Maitre’d stand in the Capital Grille, and the .

"Scully?" she asked, covertly adjusting her holster on her hip so it wasn't as obvious under her taupe blazer. After Melissa's pep talk a few weeks ago, she had determined to really make an effort with her father, and so when he'd called the day before to see if she was free for lunch, she'd cleared her diary rather than turn him down.

The black-tied waiter greeted her with a smile and scooped a leather-bound menu from his stand. "Your companion's already here. Let me take you through." 

Her father rose as she approached the table, and it seemed a little strange to see him in a regular suit, without gilt and epaulettes. He looked like every other middle-aged politician or pollster in the room. 

"Hi Daddy," she murmured as he pressed a kiss to her cheek, and they sat and waited while the waiter unfolded napkins and listed the specials.

"Wine?"

"Just water for me please," she said and her father eyed her over the top of his menu.

"I guess you're on the clock, huh?" She pursed her lips apologetically and he looked up at the waiter, "I'll have a bourbon and soda."

The waiter left them to peruse the menus and after a quick glance, Scully folded hers and set it down. "So what's the occasion Dad?" she asked with false lightness.

William Scully regarded his youngest daughter. "I have to have a reason to take my daughter to lunch now?"

Scully smiled at his disingenuous answer and adjusted the angle of her silverware so that it was exactly perpendicular to the table edge. "Okay," she said, changing tack, "What brings you to the City? Without Mom."

Since he retired the year before, and settled into the house in Baltimore with her mother, her father had ventured into the City only once that she knew of, to see the Nationals play his beloved Red Sox.

"Meeting at the DoD," he explained, and accepting his drink from the waiter, they ordered lunch.

"About what?" 

"Starbuck," he admonished, like he always had when she'd asked questions about the parts of his job he couldn't discuss. She ducked her head contritely, and he chuckled, conceding, "Nothing interesting. Just helping out with some recruitment."

"So," he father hummed, after a lengthy pause, and half his drink was gone. "You got a new assignment, I hear."

Scully quirked a surprised eyebrow at him, wondering how he knew. Her sister was usually sphinx-like with a confidence. "Melissa?"

"No. Senator Matheson was at the meeting today. He said he's an old family friend of your new partner's."

Scully swallowed uncomfortably. "Did he say anything else?"

Her father drained his drink and gestured to the waiter for a new one. "Only that he had very high regard for this Agent Mulder, and that I should be proud of the reputation you're making for yourself in the Bureau." His tone did not suggest he appreciated being told what to be proud of.

She fingered the stem of her water glass, wishing it were wine, and bit back the feelings of disappointment and guilt she'd being trying to overcome. 

"So, what? You're not teaching now?" he asked reprovingly.

"No, Sir. It's a field assignment," she hedged, hoping he wouldn't probe any further.

"Huh. What kind of cases?"

"We investigate cases that have been deemed.. unsolvable.. by the FBI."

He frowned, "Unsolvable? You mean like cold cases?"

I mean like little green men, Dad. "Uh, yeah, like cold cases."

"Oh," he said, swilling down another mouthful of his drink, and she could see him really searching, really trying hard. "Well that must be challenging," he said at last, and she almost snorted.

"Yes. It's very challenging."

He digested this, his face lightening as their lunch arrived and the waiter arranged their plates. "So, you see the game on Saturday?" he asked, smearing mustard on his steak, and the tension gradually ebbed from the table.

"Yeah," she nodded sympathetically, "It was a tough game."

"Tough?! We were robbed. If the damn umpire hadn't called time..."

"I don't know Daddy, the Yankees did pretty well with those last three runs -"

"Pah, I raised you better than that, Dana!" he groused, but there was a warmth in his eyes that had been missing before, and when she returned his smile, she found that for the first time in a long time, she meant it.


	27. Chapter 27

Liz Byfield lived in the kind of condo Scully admired in magazines but could never imagine herself living it. There was obviously good money in braces, she thought, as she stood in the double-height, open-plan living room and inspected an enormous oil painting of the ocean, which stood out in stark relief against the white walls.

"Okay, Scully, we've still got good visuals on you," Skinner crackled reassuringly in her ear as the clock ticked closer to midnight and her fifth hour of playing stand-in to Liz Byfield. She glanced surreptitiously at the light fitting where she knew the living room camera was concealed and imagined Skinner meeting her gaze as he continued, "We've got every inch of the apartment covered; den, kitchen, bedroom..."

"So feel free to start the peep show any time, Scully," Mulder added, and having his irreverent voice right in her ear made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She was sure she could hear Diana's pissed off sniff and Skinner's eye-roll intermingled with the muffled chorus of huffed laughs that echoed in her earpiece.

"Dream on, Mulder," she said, eyes constantly sweeping the room as though the killer was going to materialize from thin air.

"I'm just saying, Scully, we could be in for a long wait. Make yourself at home..."

This time it was Scully who rolled her eyes, as she wandered into the immaculate kitchen and tried, unsuccessfully, to picture herself cooking in it. Of course the reason it was so hard to conjure the image could've had something to do with the fact that she barely cooked in the kitchen she already had.

For a long time she had blamed Mulder for the things that were wrong with her life. She hadn't admitted it to herself, or to him, but deep down, she'd allowed a resentment to burn in her gut for the things she'd missed out on. But over this past year, when she'd had every chance to change her life, what had she really done?

Bought a few new pairs of shoes. Repainted her bedroom a different shade of cream. Even her recently written-off Audi had only been acquired when her trusty Toyota died of emissions failure. 

She had not travelled, other than to poke around at some other ME's corpse-de-jour; or read the stack of books by her bed that grew steadily with each season. She hadn't spent lazy Saturday afternoons watching foreign movies with the closed-captioning off to brush up on her language skills, or enjoyed mind-melting casual sex with a string of desirable bachelors. Until her aborted night with Tom, she hadn't even been on any dates. 

Without Mulder, her stasis had not just continued, but deepened, until she was just the shell of a person she couldn't even remember how to be any more.

She ran her fingers along the cold, hard granite of the worktop until her fingers brushed the edge of the built-in hob. She pressed her thumb against the spotless steel and when she pulled her hand away, she could see the smear of her thumbprint on the shiny surface. She polished it out with the side of her hand, and it was like she'd never been there.

Except she had.

And even though it was indiscernible to the eye, traces of her thumbprint would still be detectible with the right tools.

Was that what Mulder was? A thumbprint on her soul she'd tried to rub out, only to find she could never remove all traces of him?

An uneasy feeling settled over her. She had pushed Mulder away because she was afraid of what her life would be like if she kept him in it, when what she should have feared was what her life would become without him.

The stark white walls of the characterless condo seemed to close in on her and Scully sighed, wishing she could close her eyes and will this all to be over. Pulling open the heavy door to the refrigerator, she was bathed in cool yellow light. 

As she scanned the contents for the third time that night and reached for a bottle of water, the overhead lights clicked off. A second later the glow of the refrigerator followed and infinitesimally, second by second, the electric hum of the apartment quieted until the only sound she could hear was her own breathing.

"Scully?!" Mulder hissed, panicked, in her ear. "What's going on?"

Afraid to speak, she stepped back and closed the refrigerator silently, reaching for the gun at her hip, which Skinner had pressed anxiously into her hands when he reluctantly agreed to the sting.

The heavy weight of the Sig was comforting and grounding in her hand, her fingers curling instinctively around the rough grip. She turned around slowly, quietly, forcing her lungs to operate on a reduced schedule, despite the surge of adrenalin in her veins that made her want to suck down air in great gasps.

"Scully, talk to me!"

Edging forward noiselessly on leather soled shoes, she cupped her left hand under her right, steadying her aim and she scanned the murky room. The orange burr of light from the city below glittered through the picture windows, and slowly her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The frantic whine of conversation in her earpiece dimmed in her awareness as all of her attention, all of her nous was focused on the room before her. Distantly, she picked out Mulder's voice above the other's rabbling in her ear, "Fuck, Scully, we can't see anything! What's happening?!" but even him she ignored, as she stealthily cased the room.

Clearing the living area, she pressed her back against the wall and moved down the hallway toward the bedroom. The alarm panel by the front door blinked happily, proclaiming her perimeter secure, but the rock in her stomach told her otherwise. The discourse in her earpiece was distracting, and she tore the bud from her ear so she could listen to the apartment.

The bedroom door was cracked and she toed it open gently, exposing the room before her. She edged tentatively forward, blinking in the increasing darkness, and swept her gaze and her pistol in a smooth arc across the lilac fragranced room. Her finger tensed on the trigger and her ears strained to hear above the sound of her own pulse hammering.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end in a singularly discomfiting way. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she turned around, her arms braced and her back taut as a bead of sweat trickled down her spine.

Not two feet in front of her was a face she'd hoped to hell she'd never see again.

She clicked off the safety on her gun at the same second a powerful hand smashed down on her wrist, knocking the gun from her grasp, not pausing before it swung back and punched her in the face.

The force spun her round, knocking her to her knees, and her assailant was on her back before she could blink, propelling her forward and shoving her face into the hard ceramic floor. An unrelenting hand gripped her hair, slamming her cheek back against the tile when she struggled. 

The metallic tang of blood filled her mouth and she spat it out, dragging in enough breath to open her mouth and scream. Only one word fell from her lips. "Mulder!"


	28. Chapter 28

"Tell me a story, Scully."

Scully looked down at Mulder as he lay on his back on the grass, his head propped up on his wadded blazer, graceful hands resting on his stomach. Dappled sunlight shone through the thinning branches of the tree above and colored him like camouflage.

"What do you mean 'tell you a story'?" she asked, tilting her face up toward the sun and enjoying the unseasonable warmth on her skin of a day she should not have lived to see. 

"Tell me something about you I don't know," he pressed, keeping his eyes closed, and she admired the way his long lashes rested silkily on the smooth skin of his cheeks.

"I don't know Mulder, I don't think there's much you don't already know," she hedged. "Besides we should be getting back to work," she added half-heartedly thinking of the dingy, sun-starved office she had been so desperate to return to since she got sick. Until the alternative was a lazy lunch in the park with Mulder. 

He looked so peaceful, lying on the threadbare grass of the Mall, hands folded loosely on his stomach. His discarded sandwich lay on the grass beside him, attracting ants, and a faint breeze stirred his hair, pushing it across his brow. The urge to brush it back was almost overpowering and she picked up her soda instead, plucking at the aluminum tab with her fingernail.

"You lived twenty-nine years without me Scully; there's a lot of stuff I don't already know." He opened his eyes and caught her staring; the magnetic pull of his eyes held her gaze and she couldn't look away. "And it's your first day back. I don't think Skinner's gonna rag on you for taking a long lunch."

He closed his eyes again, considering the matter settled, and she looked east toward the dome on the Capitol. Across the path, a group of students had settled on picnic blankets, spread books interspersed with wrappers from the same Greek deli she and Mulder had bought lunch from. She watched their carefree banter, the lazy way they joked over their studies, and listened to the soft hum of music from their boom box. Another five minutes wouldn't hurt.

"Well, you know we moved around a lot when I was a kid," she glanced down at Mulder and he nodded in his repose, a light smile gracing his fleshy lower lip. 

"When I was six, my father was doing his command training at Norfolk and was never home. The base house they gave us was tiny, we were all sharing rooms and getting on each other's nerves, and it was driving my Mom to distraction. We'd just moved from Alaska, and Japan before that and then I forget where, but the houses had always been a lot bigger. She told my father that if he didn't do something about it, he wasn't going to have a family to come home to, so he rented a summerhouse in the Monongahela National Forest and packed us all off for the summer."

She paused, thinking back to that long, hot summer of 1970; the joy of running through the fields of long grass, the sun lightening her hair, the clean wind warm on her face. Mulder nudged her with his elbow and she continued.

"The house was right by Lake Buffalo, and on one of the banks there was this ancient oak tree. It looked completely out of place, the only one around, and Melissa and I used to run there through the fields of dandelions, and scramble up it. It had a branch that stuck out 90 degrees from the trunk with a sort of crevice that you could fit your feet through. We used to hang upside down until all the blood had rushed to our heads and our faces were beetroot. When we righted ourselves, the buzz was incredible."

"Like Forrest Gump," Mulder suggested happily, the image of a six-year-old Scully hanging upside down from an oak tree creasing his face in a contented smile.

"My brother still has a scar from falling off that tree."

"Bill?" he asked hopefully, and she suppressed a smile.

"No, Charles."

The students across the way started to pack their up things, flipping the switch on the boom box, so that quiet descended on their small square of park. Above them, Scully could hear a pair of birds chirping, and a faint breeze rustled through the few remaining leaves like a whisper. 

"'S a nice story," Mulder mumbled, tilting his head to the side so he could nudge her thigh with his nose. "I always see your family like the Waltons."

She barked a laugh, thinking how unlike the Waltons the bickering Scully brood had been most of the time, but the memory of her family that summer, when the freedom of the forest had brought a certain kind of calm to them, made her heart clench.

"You know, all the times we moved when I was growing up, the different houses, all the new schools - it never really meant that much. Because I had my family with me."

He smiled up at her, a languid, sweet curl of his lips and his eyes were the same color as the ground beneath him. "We should go back to work," he declared reluctantly, but made no move to get up. He just stared up at her with his ripe olive eyes, and all at once it hit her. 

Cookies at her mother's kitchen table, a rented house in the Virginian wilderness. The basement office or a carousel on the 4th floor. A shady patch under a fading cherry blossom. Home was being with the people you loved. Belonging was being wherever Mulder was.

She reached over and brushed the stray lock of hair from his forehead, letting her fingertips linger on the soft skin of his brow. She smiled, and he smiled back.

"Yeah, in a minute."


	29. Chapter 29

"Muulllder!" she screamed again, having no idea if her mic was still functional, but praying he could still hear her as she struggled under the biting grip of the Bounty Hunter.

He released his hold on her head and slipped a brawny arm round her throat in a chokehold. She grabbed his sinewy forearm with both hands, clawing at him with her nails, and he hauled her back to her feet. His enormous body dwarfed her, her head barely coming to his chest, and she was painfully, acutely aware that if he wanted to snap her neck, he could do it with one hand.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the metallic gleam of her Sig on the floor, several feet away by the bathroom door, but every blow she tried to inflict on her attacker seemed to bounce off him.

She jabbed with her elbows, kicked with her feet; twisting her body in his vise-like grip until sweat was pouring off her and she was gasping for breath, and it was all just wasted effort. 

He spun her round in his grasp, shoving her back hard against the wall, a hand clamped painfully around each of her wrists, holding her to smooth white plaster. Her chest heaved, his expressionless grey eyes cast over her body and he snarled unattractively at her, pressing his lips close to her ear. His breath was rank as it unfurled on her face.

"I'm going to enjoy doing you, bitch," he hissed harshly in his generic Slavic accent.

"Fuck you, you bastard!" she screamed into his face, spit dotting his rubbery cheeks and he actually smiled at her.

"I'm going to do you slowly," he said, his guttural tone taking on a singsong quality. "You feel everything," he promised, enunciating every syllable, and her stomach rolled.

Not as long as I can still fucking breath you asshole, she thought, and with as much force as she could muster, she drew her head back and slammed it forward, cracking the bridge of his misshapen nose with the top of her head. At the same time, she slammed her knee up into his groin, the soft flesh yielding pleasingly under her assault.

He jolted back in pain, relaxing his grip on her for the split-second it took her to squirm out of his grasp and scramble away, her stupid, expensive leather-soled shoes slipping on the blood-marred tiles. Her gun was only six feet away and she dived for it, hurling her body onto the floor, arm outstretched and straining for purchase. A hand manacled her ankle, crushing the bones and hauled her backward. Kicking her foot wildly, she made one last, misjudged grab at the gun and knocked it further out of her reach. Furious with herself, and furious with this asshole for what he had done to those women, to Tom, she pivoted on her hip and looked up at him with hatred in her face. She opened her mouth and roared at him wildly, an animalistic noise from deep inside her that surprised even her, and she kicked with both of her feet at his knees, connecting solidly with his left kneecap. She felt the crack of bone under her foot, and he reared back, shocked and in pain.

"You bitch!" he gasped, stumbling back onto his ass, on the floor between Scully and the gun.

She kicked backward on the tiles, scrambling to her feet and running full tilt toward the kitchen, throwing open drawers in the half-light from the street below; searching frantically for any weapon she could use on him that wouldn't kill her too. His footsteps thundered in the hall as, recovered, he pounded after her and she grabbed a rolling pin with disgust.

With the breakfast bar between them, he lurched toward her maniacally, sweat shining on his agrarian features in the dim light, and she lobbed the rolling pin at his head. It glanced off his temple and he cried out, hand flying to the wound in the second before he dived over the granite worktop toward her like he was moshing.

Scully darted out of his reach and swerved round the bar, heading for the bathroom and her gun. As she powered down the hall and skidded to a stop by the bathroom, she could hear the drive of heavy feet out in the hallway, voices calling urgently back and forth. Glancing back to see the Bounty Hunter lurching after her, she groped for her gun on the floor, fingers closing around the cold grip and settling into the familiar indentations. She flicked the safety off.

Distantly, she hear the pound of a battering ram against the door, and she raised her hands, pointing the pistol at the straining neck of the man approaching her, eyes furious and wild. She knew she would only get one chance at the shot.

Time seemed to slow, her pulse evening out in her veins until it was as if her heart wasn't beating at all. The only sound she could hear was the syncopated whisper of her own breathing. Mechanically, she tensed her finger around the trigger and the front door gave way with a crack that reverberated through the high-ceilinged apartment. The split-second distraction startled the Bounty Hunter, compromising her line of sight to his neck and leaving her impotent.

In the halo of light from the shattered doorway, Mulder raised his weapon. She saw the flare of his shot at the same time the Bounty Hunter dropped to the floor.

"Keep back!" Mulder hollered to the team behind him, barrelling past the eroding body on the floor and pushing her back into the bathroom, away from the toxic fumes filling the hallway.

Several seconds passed before she blinked and became aware of her heart beating rapidly in her chest again as she sat on the edge of the bathtub. Mulder was crouched before her, his hands travelling over her face, her neck, her arms in frantic reconnaissance. He was talking and she focused on his lips as she tuned back in.

"Did he hurt you? Scully? Are you hurt? Talk to me."

"I'm okay," she managed through uncooperative lips, and the sound of her voice seemed to calm Mulder. He let out a long breath, sliding his hand down her arm to pry the gun out of her grasp. 

Outside, the electricity flickered back on and cold white light from the hall shone into the bathroom, illuminating Mulder's shell-shocked face. Rapid voices carried from the hallway as the scene was secured and Skinner's sonorous baritone announced it was clear to enter. 

Mulder swallowed, "Jesus, I thought..." but he couldn't bring himself to say what

"I'm okay," she repeated, sounding more certain, and slowly Mulder nodded. He slumped down on his knees as if in prayer, and let his head dip forward until the untidy peaks of his hair brushed against her chest, and the unsteady rattle of his breath was warm on her belly.

Cautiously, she raised her hand, resting it on the back of his head where the short hairs on his neck grated against her fingertips. "I'm okay," she said a third time, her voice almost back to normal, and gradually, he relaxed under her touch.

Scully looked up as someone appeared in the doorway, blotting out the harsh white light. Diana Fowley stood stiffly, fingering the frame. Her austere face gave nothing away as she looked from Scully to Mulder and then back again, dark eyes shining in the dim light of the bathroom and her face softened in melancholic acceptance. She nodded almost imperceptibly before turning and walking away, her heels clicking quietly on the tiles.

Scully brought her other hand to Mulder's head, sliding her fingers through the silky strands. She let her head fall forward until her face was buried in his cool hair, the familiar scent of his skin filling her nose as her fingers clutched desperately at his hair.

The back of her throat burned with unshed tears.


	30. Chapter 30

"Hey," she ventured softly from the doorway, watching the late afternoon sun filter through the tilted blinds in buttery shafts. The quiet electric hum of monitors filled the air and Tom turned his face toward the door, his lips curling in a smile.

"Hey."

She stepped into the room and pulled a chair over to the bed, sitting down and reaching her left hand tentatively for his. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I climbed Everest without my coat on and then fell down the other side," he answered lethargically, voice thick and unused.

She squeezed his fingers gently. "Your doctor is pleased with your progress. You're going to be fine."

"Thanks to you," he tried to smile without aggravating the line of butterfly stitches holding his lower lip together.

Scully shook her head vigorously, not deserving his thanks after everything that had happened. The treatment protocol she had developed in Alaska may have been what saved Tom's life, but she couldn't help but think that if she hadn't involved him in the case, he wouldn't have needed it.

Her eyes flowed over his face as his eyelids slipped closed; his lip, his blackened eye, the stitches on his eyebrow. She ran her tongue across her upper lip and wished she could just let him sleep, but before she could find the words to tell him, his creaky voice broke the silence.

"You caught the bastard," he stated with a hint of admiration, cracking his eyes open. 

"Yes."

"I was right," he said, "We are lucky to have you."

Scully laughed in bitter disbelief. "Oh God, Tom," she breathed, tears suddenly hot in eyes, and she could hardly look at him. "I've treated you so badly," she confessed.

"Because you love someone else?" he looked at her seriously, "Dana, life's too short to spend it with the wrong person. It's too short for regret."

She swallowed against the regret that she was feeling right now, "Tom, there's something I have to tell you." She took his left hand in both of hers. "Miranda was found dead this morning," she said in a hushed voice. "I'm so sorry."

His eyes closed in grief and when he opened them, tears glistened on his eyelashes. "How?"

"She was shot in her apartment. NYPD are treating it like a failed burglary attempt."

"But you don't think so?" he rasped sluggishly, sorrow tainting in his voice. 

"I think... Miranda was mixed up in something much bigger than she realized."

They lapsed into silence, eyes drawn to the muted television in the corner as it broadcast CNN and another report on Fannie Mae's efforts to aid mortgage lending by easing credit. It was strangely comforting to see even after the last few days, the world carried on, oblivious. "Do you think she knew? About the women?" he asked eventually, keeping his eyes on the television, and through the hoarseness of his voice Scully could hear his hope that she had not.

Scully sighed and let go of his hand. "I don't know," she admitted, folding her hands in her lap. "But in the end, I think Miranda paid a very high price for whatever she did know."

***

Later, after she had sat with him in awkward silence, not knowing what to say but sensing just her presence was enough, and he had finally fallen asleep, Scully stepped into the hallway. She closed the door quietly behind her, letting her shoulders droop as she sagged against the flesh-colored wall.

"How is he?" Startled, she looked up to find Diana peering through the slatted blinds into Tom's room, her impeccable brown hair shining under the stark overhead light. Scully straightened her back, "He's recovering well."

She studied Diana's opaque face, and her deceptively dispassionate eyes, and felt once again like she was on the back foot with this woman. "What are you doing here, Agent Fowley?"

"I wanted to see for myself."

"That's right. You have an interest in the X-Files don't you," Scully said cynically, moving to walk past Diana.

"You don't like me much, do you?" the older woman observed, pivoting to look at Scully's retreating back.

"I don't know you," Scully said, turning round to face her.

"And yet that doesn't stop you from judging me."

She stared at Diana coldly, her jaw locked, and something about the way Diana's thin mouth twisted smugly, made her feel like she was fifteen years old and being pulled up by her father for having a bad attitude.

"You think I abandoned Fox, that I deserted him when he needed me," Diana surmised, "But you don't see that you're the one who walked away when he really needed someone."

"You don't know anything about me," Scully spat, feeling sweat begin to prickle on the back of her neck. God, but she hated this woman, almost irrationally. With her self- satisfied superiority and her fucking tailored suits. She hated her more for the hint of truth in her words.

"I know some of the sacrifices you've made for Fox's cause, even though you don't believe in it. I know that even now, you're willing to drop everything when he calls." For an instant, she could almost imagine that Diana's face had softened as she spoke. 

"If you have a point, Agent Fowley, feel free to come to it," she snapped impatiently, and Diana shook her head despairingly.

"But you don't love him," she said bluntly, goadingly, and Scully felt the vein in her forehead bulge to breaking point.

She gaped at Diana, at her audacity. "And you do?"

"Yes. I do," Diana said honestly.

Scully ran her tongue across her upper lip, unable to contain her disgust. "I don't have time for this. I have to get to work." She brushed past Diana and stalked down the hall, her shoes clacking furiously on the linoleum.

"You're a coward, Dana," Diana's smooth voice carried down the hall. 

"Excuse me?!" Scully barked, spinning round. "Who the hell do you think you are? All this crap about my sacrifices, my feelings - you don't know the first thing about me!"

"I know I don't see you fighting for what you want."

Scully blinked, her chest heaving with fury and shock. Her head spun with confusion. Was Diana actually trying to offer her advice? This untrustworthy, sanctimonious, bitch of a woman was trying to help her? She shook her head in disbelief and with one last glance at the enigmatic woman at the other end of the hall who seemed to think Mulder was some kind of prize to be fought over, she pushed through the swinging doors at the entrance to the ward. 

"You should think about what I said, Dana," Diana called after her, as the doors swung shut.


	31. Chapter 31

"I thought you could probably use this," Mulder said, holding out a brown paper sack with the logo for Central Liquor Store stamped in red ink on the side, and when she accepted the bag, he stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets.

Scully glanced at him from under her eyelashes as she unrolled the top and pulled out an $80 bottle of cognac. He shuffled a little on her doormat; brown Caterpillar's flaking dried mud on the coir. His shoulders were hunched inside his grey t-shirt, and she realized that he was wearing the same clothes he'd had on the day she resigned. God, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. Last week seemed like a lifetime ago. And after the past few days, she could definitely use a drink.

She craned her neck to look up at him and tilted her head to the side, lips pursed in rueful smile. "You want to come in for a drink?"

He nodded gratefully and followed her into the apartment, closing the front door behind him quietly.

In the kitchen, she reached for glasses, straining on her tiptoes for the snifters on the top shelf, and she started when Mulder's hand brushed hers as he reached past her easily and brought the glasses down. He leaned on his hip against the counter as she removed the foil seal and twisted the cap until it released with a muffled pop. She poured a healthy measure into each glass.

"You submitted your final report to Skinner?" she asked, and the glass made a high-pitched grating noise as she slid it along the counter towards Mulder.

"Claire French and the six women before her were all victims of the same killer, an unidentified male who was fatally wounded during a sting operation," he recited the report's tag line by rote, and swallowed the cognac in one large gulp. "NYPD have classified Miranda Holland's death as a botched burglary and I suspect it's already been filed in the round cabinet, never to see the light of day again. Skinner got a call from the Attorney General, who as you'll remember, is not exactly the poster child for open and transparent justice. He told him Future Medical has been a good friend to the Government, and to our wounded American war veterans, and we should back the hell off."

Scully sipped her own drink and watched as Mulder slugged another two inches into his glass. "What about the report we liberated from their offices?"

Mulder swilled a mouthful of cognac and swallowed slowly. "I don't know what it means, or how we can use it. Diana thinks we should forget about it."

"What do you think?"

"I think Diana's appreciation for the case-closed stamp doesn't always leave her with a burning desire to find the truth."

It was the most cutting thing she'd heard him say about Diana, and there was a hint of annoyance in his voice that she'd never heard before. She thought of the conversation she'd shared with Diana earlier, and how the other woman had tried to reach out to her. She still couldn't quite believe it had happened. "Mulder -" she began, just as he opened his own mouth to speak.

"Scully -" 

They both snapped their mouths closed. "Go on," she encouraged, thinking that every time he'd tried to talk to her over the past week, she'd cut him off.

"How's Tom?" he asked, and it was obviously not what he had been planning to say.

"He's fine. It'll be a couple of weeks until he's back on his feet but he's going to be okay," she rolled the bottle stopper back and forth on the counter. 

"Good. I, ah, I wouldn't want to think this came between you," he said as he watched her manipulate the cork under her finger. He shrugged uncomfortably when she raised a disbelieving eyebrow. 

"Tom is just a friend," she admitted softly, "I thought maybe there might be more, but... there isn't."

"Oh," she could see him trying to gauge her level of disappointment.

She sucked in a fortifying breath, "Mulder, why did you come here tonight?"

"What I can't celebrate the successful conclusion of a case with my former partner?" She fixed him with a look, and his bluster subsided. "I came to say thank you."

"Mulder -"

"No, Scully, seriously. After Dallas I told you that I didn't think I could do it on my own, and I was right. I didn't even realize how fucking right I was."

He gave a short, mirthless laugh, and she flinched at the uncharacteristic bitterness in his voice, "Look at this case - I've been wandering round with my dick in my hand for months, trying to figure which way the wind was blowing, and you come along and solve it in a week."

"Mulder that's not what happened."

"It's what happened from where I'm standing," he averred, and then tempered his tone. "Scully, there's something else," he said, changing the subject suddenly, or maybe he was finally just getting onto the one subject that had become a thorn between them. She eyed him warily.

"There's nothing going on between me and Diana." 

This she would've found hard to believe, at least until this afternoon, but she kept her mouth shut.

"When she first showed up last year, it was just... I don't know, it felt like bad timing. You and I had been having such a tough time, we were always at each other's throats and I just couldn't find the right words to tell you what my history with her was. And then the more time that went by, it just seemed like the opportunity had passed."

Scully ran the pads of her fingers around the rim of her glass belying her nervousness. "And what is your history?" she asked evenly, and Mulder blinked in surprise.

"I thought you said..?"

"I know you were more than partners," she repeated what she'd said to him in the elevator the other day, which was pretty much the sum total of her knowledge on the matter.

"We.. I... we were married," he stuttered miserably, and if not for her own shock, she would've felt slightly sorry for him. Married. Diana hadn't let that one slip earlier.

"Scully," he implored, and he reached across as if to touch her, but was scared to make contact, and his fingers hovered over her hand. "It was a long time ago, right when I got out of the Academy, and it was over in months. It was a mistake. After she went to Europe, I never thought I'd see her again."

She took a large sip of brandy and held it in her mouth, feeling her tongue burn, while he gabbled. Married. And here she'd always thought he was afraid of commitment.

"But she came back," Scully said slowly.

"Yes. And then after you left, I... I've been very lost without you."

"Diana's been there for you," she stated dully.

"Not like that," he said quickly, honestly. 

"Why are you telling me this, Mulder?" and she suddenly felt very small standing next to him at the counter, barefoot and almost a foot shorter. He moved closer and she had to tilt her head back to see him.

"Because I need you to understand what I only just figured out myself. When I met you, the only thing I had was the X-Files. I thought you'd be running back to Quantico before the month was out. But you didn't - you stuck with me Scully; and your honor and integrity gave our work validity. You put everything on the line for me, time and again." His eyes pleaded with her to hear him out, and she stared up at him, unable to blink, scarcely able to breath. "And I tried so hard not to love you," he whispered gruffly, and around them the apartment was so still and quiet, she could hear the slip of his t-shirt on his skin as he edged closer to her.

"That night with you was wonderful," he confessed, "And maybe afterwards a selfish part of me hoped you'd change your mind about quitting... but don't think anything I did that night was for something other than love."

Tears blurred her vision and she blinked her eyes clear, "Mulder..." she sighed, sinking into him, her arms sliding round his waist as she rested her cheek against the soft grey fabric of his t-shirt. Slowly his own arms snaked around her, holding her body against his. 

He ducked his head until his face was buried in her neck and his breath stirred her hair. "If you want me to walk away, Scully, I'll do it. If you don't love me..."

Scully choked back the sob that welled in her throat, wanting to tell him how sorry she was for pushing him away all this time, for letting her pride hurt both of them. "I do," she whispered against his t-shirt instead, and his breath hitched in his chest. She pulled back to look at him, and he stared at her with hopeful eyes. "I do love you."

The smile that split his face was like sunshine and he laughed, a rumbling bark from somewhere deep inside as he slid his hands up her back to cup her face. "Oh God, you don't know how glad I am to hear you say that."

His thumbs rubbed circles on her jaw and she found herself smiling back, a strange, weightless sensation filling her chest. Happiness, she realized. Mulder pressed a kiss against her forehead, the corner of her mouth and then his lips were soft against hers, mouth moulding gently around her lower lip, his tongue flicking out to taste her, before he released her and retreated to rub his nose against hers. It was a deceptively chaste kiss, and arousal, hot and sudden, filled her belly.

Foreheads resting together, Scully inhaled shallowly through her mouth and tried to curb the emotions and desire rampaging through her body.

Mulder swirled his thumbs against her cheeks and pressed her against the counter with the weight of his body. "It's been such a strange week," he declared and she hummed noncommittally. It had been, almost overwhelmingly so, but the rhythmic movement of his hands and the adoring heat of his gaze was making her forget all that. He combed her hair back with gentle fingers. "I don't want to rush things," he admitted, as though six years was a bit hasty, and his gaze darting between her eyes and her parted lips. "Maybe I should go."

"Maybe," she agreed, but she slipped her fingers inside the waistband of his jeans, so that the backs of her fingers brushed against the soft, warm skin of his belly. She could feel his stomach muscles flex against her hand.

He swallowed loudly. "Or I could stay."

She stood on her tiptoes to rub the tip of her nose against his. "You could."

He swooped in then, nipping her lips with one hard, biting kiss, and then a second, his eyes wide and black with longing. She gasped in surprise and he was there, tongue hard in her mouth as he growled his want and crushed her against him.

His hands were everywhere, stroking her jaw, tangling in her hair, trailing down her back and then tight around her waist as he boosted her onto the counter, evening the height differential. He was solid between her thighs as she slid grasping hands under his t-shirt to pull him closer. The muscles of his back jumped under her touch and she could scarcely remember another time when she'd become so turned on so quickly. Oh yeah. The last time they had sex.

She sucked his tongue into her mouth, laving it with her own and driving her fingers into his spiky hair. She wanted to feel all of him, everywhere, and then his hands nudged between them, fumbling with the button on her jeans.

"Wait. Stop," she gasped between kisses. "Not here."

"Okay," he agreed passively, letting go of her jeans, but he ducked his head and sucked the covered peak of her breast into his mouth, teeth worrying her rigid nipple through her bra and t-shirt. Even through the fabric, it felt amazing, and Mulder reached around her to pull her lower body hard against him, crying out against her breast at the friction. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to summon a sliver of self-control; she wanted him so badly, wanted to make love with him, to build new memories together and put the past behind them. They couldn't do that fucking in the kitchen like horny adolescents.

"Mulder, stop," she persisted, pushing against his shoulders until he released her breast from his mouth. A wet circle darkened the fabric of her t-shirt, and he looked up at her with hooded eyes, nodding shakily as he helped her off the counter and pulled her after him into the bedroom. 

Light the color of ripe apricots trickled in through the slatted blinds as they undressed one another with less haste, and infinitely more care than they'd displayed in the kitchen. The elongated hiss of the No.48 letting down passengers in the street below carried through her cracked bedroom window, and augmented her own desperate hiss as Mulder's probing fingers found her center and delved, deep and hard into her body.

His tongue followed his fingers, exploring her overheated flesh, driving her closer to the edge until she grasped at his hair and tugged him up until he was lying hard on top of her. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, breathing him in. Affection contracted her heart into a small, hard stone in her chest and every beat of her heart reverberated through her body.

"I love you," she whispered like a mantra into his ear as he entered her, clamping her tightly against him, and it was such a relief to admit it. "I love you so much."

Mulder dovetailed his fingers with hers and pressed her hands into the mattress by her head. He rubbed his nose against hers again, and the intimacy of the gesture, with him deep inside her, gave sent a shiver down her spine. 

"Scully," he rumbled, his face tight with pleasure, his fingers tightening around hers, "When I'm with you, I feel like I'm home."

"You are home, Mulder," she promised, and the hard nut of her heart exploded in her chest, contentment washing over her in waves. "We both are."


End file.
